A thief and a liar at 14, Bobby is furious with his mother for moving the family to the sticks to get him away from the trouble he’s been up to in Dublin. Taken on by an older gang for his youth and speed, Bobby wants the excitement of drugs, booze and the burning of stolen cars that gave his life thrills. The country is boring. He is initially skeptical of his younger brother’s accounts of the “little woman” who drinks the milk in the nighttime, but spooky details of the history of their little cottage gradually turn Bobby into a detective of night creatures real and imagined. The ancient ring forts, neighbors’ tales of murder and the way rural communities don’t let you escape consequences slowly swirl into an intricate narrative pattern. Bobby’s first-person narration never shortchanges his wrongdoing or the family pattern of irresponsibility. In the work required by the landlord after he wrecks a stolen car, Bobby slowly begins to find his salvation. True to an astonishingly amoral worldview while equally revealing of Bobby’s compassion, this novel scintillates. (Fiction. YA)
