LITTLE CRUELTIES

Three Irish brothers spend their lives battling each other and competing for their mother’s attention—and then one ends up dead.

At the start of Irish novelist Nugent’s latest book, the three Drumm brothers are attending a funeral. But while two are standing with the mourners, one of them is lying in the coffin—and the other two have helped him land there. Which brother is dead? Is it the oldest, William, an arrogant, womanizing film producer who's his mother’s favorite despite his misogyny? Is it hapless, awkward Brian, the middle son, who can’t quite keep up a successful career or romance? Or is it fragile Luke, the emotionally unstable youngest, who finds success as a pop star but pays a huge personal price? Nugent travels to the past to reveal her answer, winding back through the Drumms’ troubled childhoods and their fraught relationships with each other and their mother, an actress and singer whose careless attention they competed for their entire lives. Each brother takes a turn at narration to justify his perspective, but their voices aren’t distinct in any way, and the flat similarity of the characters makes it hard to stay invested in who survives and who doesn’t. The book doesn’t raise enough tension to be a thriller, and its lack of depth prevents it from becoming an absorbing family drama. Instead it occupies an awkward middle ground that turns out to be less satisfying than it should be.

A story of three brothers and a murder that lacks tension and well-defined characters.