The Ghosts of Belfast (Jack Lennon Investigations #1)

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The Ghosts of Belfast (Jack Lennon Investigations #1)

3.93 of 5 stars 3.93 · rating details · 2,051 ratings · 382 reviews

Fegan has been a “hard man,” an IRA killer in northern Ireland. Now that peace has come, he is being haunted day and night by twelve ghosts: a mother and infant, a schoolboy, a butcher, an RUC constable, and seven other of his innocent victims. In order to appease them, he’s going to have to kill the men who gave him orders.

As he’s working his way down the list he encounte...more

Hardcover, 336 pages

Published October 1st 2009 by Soho Press, Inc. (first published 2009)

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Aug 07, 2012 Kemper rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2012, bad-guys-rule, politics, terrorism, over-there

As children we’re all told that there are no such thing as ghosts. However, when a former hitman for the IRA starts seeing the victims of his murders and seeking revenge for them, it doesn’t much matter whether they’re real or not because if he decides that someone is responsible for their demise, that person will get a chance to investigate the after-life first hand in the very near future.

Gerry Fegan was once a feared and respected killer for the Irish cause, but while serving a long stretch i...more

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Jul 13, 2012 Lou rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: mystery-thriller, february-2012-list

A very well done debut.
With praise from the likes of James Ellroy on the cover you couldn't go wrong.
He was right it does hooks you in also it has a twist of supernatural. There are twelve ghosts, there was twelve innocents that died over a number of years at the hands of politicians and group members. There was battles and fighting for independence, but the twelve were innocent bystanders that got caught in the trail of fire. One by one the ghosts of the dead want revenge delivered and the twe...more

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Mar 05, 2013 Ted rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: lit-irish, crime-fiction, history

The Ghosts of Belfast review, Part I
Part II http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/...
Part III http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/...
Part IV http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/...

This first-novel thriller by Stuart Neville, which has won many awards and plaudits, was a heart-pounding read. I would have finished it in two days, but late the second night, with maybe 40 pages to go, I just wasn’t able to handle those last 40 pages, couldn’t bear to continue reading at that hour, mostly because...more

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Jan 20, 2012 Mohammed rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2012, noir, library-books

This is easily the best crime novel debut i have read in years. Brutal, emotional strong and very believable story. The Northern Ireland setting, troubles was well used. Gerry Fegan was a very strong character, he was fascinating to read about in a mad, scary way. The real world darkness, evil of many of the shady characters in the novel is much darker read than gory, not too real serial murder novels.

On the minus side i would say the action or violent scenes could have been written better excep...more

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Jun 11, 2012 Alberto rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: crime-mystery

The idea for the book is very original. So good, actually, that it makes any other storyline secondary. But then after the second victim you know the formula is going to be repeated once and again till the end making the story way too predictable and unnecessarily long. It would’ve made a solid 200 pages novel instead of a 400 one, using three ghosts instead of twelve. Also I would’ve prefered a sad or unexpected ending.

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Jun 15, 2013 Cathleen rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: irish-lit, crime, mysteries

What we humans do to one another….

“If there’s peace, if it’s really over, then what use are we?” asks a fellow prisoner of Gerry Fegan, an IRA foot soldier, serving his time in the Maze prison. Both Fegan and the other man know that when all of the political parties agree to a peace process, they will be released, and with that, they’ll have to create new selves and to dissolve whatever their past was.

But how do you “un-become” what you had been: a terrorist, a freedom fighter, a murderer, a...more What we humans do to one another….

“If there’s peace, if it’s really over, then what use are we?” asks a fellow prisoner of Gerry Fegan, an IRA foot soldier, serving his time in the Maze prison. Both Fegan and the other man know that when all of the political parties agree to a peace process, they will be released, and with that, they’ll have to create new selves and to dissolve whatever their past was.

But how do you “un-become” what you had been: a terrorist, a freedom fighter, a murderer, a foot soldier-- a pawn? For Gerry Fegan, his release brings more punishment than his imprisonment ever did. He’s haunted by the twelve he killed; they follow him wherever he goes, wordlessly motioning what he should do, or watching him in full view of him but not visible to others. He talks to them in front of other people. His former acquaintances and neighbors aren’t sure if he’s just turned into a blind drunk or if he’s crazy. For me, as a reader, I was never quite sure if he was being haunted by ghosts or experiencing some sort of psychosis. It doesn’t really matter, though. He drinks himself into stupors every night; he lives alone, choosing isolation but not the pity with which others see him. He’s become an embarrassment to the politicians who used to direct the IRA and him. Those same former IRA leaders have maintained all of their power by transforming into high-ranking politicians, ready to benefit even more from the peace process, and Fegan threatens their potential profits.

In a case of pretzel logic, Fegan decides (or is compelled by his ghosts) to avenge the murders of the twelve innocents by murdering, one by one, those he believes are truly responsible for the killings. Fegan killed all twelve; there’s no doubt about that. But every time he’s sober enough to remember the past, he remembers his orders and the circumstances of those deaths. And he remembers how lies told to him by his superiors made him believe some he killed, like two young Royal Ulster Constabulary, had been involved in executions of IRA members—when they never were. In his most grievous moments, he remembers a young mother, her baby, and a butcher all killed when a bomb he dropped at a butcher shop exploded before it should have. Not one of them, Gerry realizes, should have died, and not one of his superiors cares.

The book is constructed into twelve chapters, and Neville uses that structure to his advantage. While Fegan considers how he’ll avenge each death, Neville fills in the back story of each person’s murder. For me, that combination of past and present evoked such horror, sadness, and tension that I had to put the book down and pick it up after a day or so. The intensity and violence were unabating, and as difficult as this book was to read at times, I never felt as though the violence was unwarranted. It fit.

One of the things I admire about this book is Neville’s ability to make me care about Gerry Fegan, to evoke sympathy for him. The man barely speaks, and we’re given only the slightest glimpses into his interior life, but nevertheless, I felt sympathy for him. To write more about how Neville does that would spoil the book, so I won’t include more about that.

I know this is classified as a “crime novel,” and while that is accurate, to limit it to that genre would be a disservice to the novel. In some ways it reminded me of The Heart of Darkness and the “horrors” of believing in a process or cause corrupted from the beginning. The novel is about human frailty,cruelty and loss; it’s about the manipulation of those young enough, naïve enough, and lonely enough to want to belong and believe, and it’s about—even if ever so slight—the possibility of redemption.

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Oct 17, 2009 Catherine rated it 3 of 5 stars

Recommended to Catherine by: Library Journal review

Shelves: ireland

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. The Ghosts of Belfast (simultaneously published in Great Britain as The Twelve) is a well-paced crime novel that kept me interested until (almost) the end. It starts out solid and...stays pretty solid. But I felt disappointed by the time I finished, and I think that the problem was that it started solidly enough that there was the potential for it to get really, really good, but instead the premise just played itself out.

Gerry Fegan, former IRA heavy, is now haunted by the ghosts of the twelve p...more

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Jun 04, 2013 Brian Holland rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Though certainly not too farfetched from Ireland's dark past, The Ghosts of Belfast is the fictitious story of IRA soldier Gerry Fegan and the twelve ghosts haunting his mind and sight. Each a victim of murder and terrorism by Gerry and his treacherous associates, the ghosts disappear and stop tormenting his mind only after those responsible for the crimes are eliminated. He's thought to be crazy by those who see him talking to thin air—the spirits only he can see—but he appeases the ghostly vic...more

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Feb 24, 2013 Χρήστος Καψάλης rated it 4 of 5 stars

"Το καλύτερο βιβλίο πρωτοεμφανιζόμενου συγγραφέα που έχω διαβάσει εδώ και χρόνια”. Και πέρα από την γνωστή υπερβολή που διακρίνει τον νάρκισσο James Ellroy, η δήλωση έχει δόση αλήθειας. Ο Stuart Nevile εμφανίστηκε εντυπωσιακά στον κόσμο του αστυνομικού μυθιστορήματος με μια δυνατή ιστορία.

Τα φαντάσματα του Μπέλφαστ είναι δώδεκα τον αριθμό. Δώδεκα νεκροί από το χέρι του εκτελεστή του IRA Τζέρι Φέγκαν. Ενός ξερακιανού πιστολά, μύθου επί τρεις δεκαετίες στις καθολικές γειτονιές του Μπέλφαστ. Ψυχικά...more

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Feb 23, 2013 Nick D rated it 2 of 5 stars

"The Ghosts of Belfast" is an Irish entry in Soho's estimable series of crime novels set around the world--everywhere from Inuit lands to Laos. Men (and the occasional woman as in Cara Black's series in Paris) walk down these foreign mean streets who are not usually themselves mean. The best of these books impart a bit of local color and even culture along with their suspense. "The Ghosts of Belfast" has locally colorful Irish crime in spades--my favorite is the scam on government fuel that is r...more

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Jan 25, 2013 Manda Scott rated it 5 of 5 stars

This was published in the UK as 'The Twelve' - so it's in that guise that this review is written - and a hearty five stars it gets, too:
This book has to be one of the best first novels I've read in a long, long time. In fact, it's probably the best since Robert Wilton's The Emperor's Spy, which was in turn the best since Andrew Greig's Electric Brae. I commend both to your reading. (Note that I'm not allowed to comment on any first novels sent in for the HWA/Goldsboro prize, so if I start laudi...more This was published in the UK as 'The Twelve' - so it's in that guise that this review is written - and a hearty five stars it gets, too:
This book has to be one of the best first novels I've read in a long, long time. In fact, it's probably the best since Robert Wilton's The Emperor's Spy, which was in turn the best since Andrew Greig's Electric Brae. I commend both to your reading. (Note that I'm not allowed to comment on any first novels sent in for the HWA/Goldsboro prize, so if I start lauding one of those once the prize winner has been announced, it can slide in here as a Very Good First novel)

I'm allowed to comment on THE TWELVE because it's not strictly speaking a historical novel - it deals with the Troubles of Northern Ireland at around the time the peace process is finally getting under way. In many ways, it covers the same time frame as Tom Bradby's SHADOW DANCER - also a stunning first novel, but where Shadow Dancer dealt with the intense relationship between an informer - a tout - and her handler, Neville's novel is far more wide ranging.

The basic thesis is simple: Gerry Fegan is a former IRA hitman. He's done his time in the Maze (during which he became apprentice to an old Loyalist murderer who had a genius for repairing old acoustic guitars. He passed his skils - and his amazing multi-thousand pound guitar - to his apprentice before he died). Now Fegan is out, but he's plagued by the ghosts of twelve of the people he has killed. When one of them mimes shooting the man who ordered his hit, Fegan sees a way to escape the constant screaming: he will kill all of the people who ordered the hits on the twelve ghosts. Then he'll be free and in peace.

Except this is Belfast, and the peace process is in its fragile, nascent stage and neither the hard men on the Republican side, nor the authorities, want anything to happen that will rock the boat. The resulting thriller - and its exploration of the seedy, corrupt, thug-ridden underbelly of Northern Irish politics is utterly and completely compelling. There aren't many books that make me break from work to go downstairs and read 'just to the end of the chapter', but this is the one that did.

It's not just that Fegan is such a compelling character - tho' he is. Or that the ghosts are so utterly grounded as to be completely believable - which they are (his prison psychiatrist calls them manifestations of his guilt. But there's a child who can see them too, which is a glorious added instability - particularly given that we only find out right at the end). It's that the horror of the brutality is altogether too believable. I have no idea if this is how Ireland really is, but it sounds horribly plausible and there are enough comments on the Amazon reviews from people who live there saying this is exactly how it is, to be satisfied. There's only one niggle, one 'why the feck did you not kill X?' moment... but given that Xs survival is integral to the sequel (there's a sequel! Yay!) it kind of makes sense.

So this works on many levels: It's a ghost story, a thriller, a love story - and an amazing, heart-rending insight into one of the most profound political developments of our time. I'm glad I read Shadow Dancer before, not after, because a good entré but would have been a real disappointment as a desert.

Thoroughly recommended.

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Sep 12, 2012 Chelsey Adams rated it 2 of 5 stars

Really disappointed in this book. I give it more than one star only because the premise is interesting – a man plagued by the ghosts of those whose deaths he has participated in find release from their presence by enacting revenge on those responsible for their death and often even their torture. However, the language just got to me, I couldn’t take anymore. Seriously, there was one chapter where almost every word was the F word! Seriously?!?! If you use one word for all your nouns, verbs and pr...more

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Sep 06, 2012 Andi Marquette rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: paranormal-ish, thrillers, horror-ish-things

I have a story about this book. I was visiting NYC recently, and was on my way to dinner in Brooklyn with a comrade. We had parked the car and we were going to walk the couple of blocks to the restaurant. On that walk, I stopped at a brownstone because whoever lived at this particular house had put 3 books outside by the small wrought iron fence that served as a boundary between it and the public sidewalk. In NYC (and probably lots of other cities), when people want to get rid of things -- i.e.,...more I have a story about this book. I was visiting NYC recently, and was on my way to dinner in Brooklyn with a comrade. We had parked the car and we were going to walk the couple of blocks to the restaurant. On that walk, I stopped at a brownstone because whoever lived at this particular house had put 3 books outside by the small wrought iron fence that served as a boundary between it and the public sidewalk. In NYC (and probably lots of other cities), when people want to get rid of things -- i.e., give stuff away -- they set it out in front of their houses.

This book was one of the three that the owner had set out. It caught my eye because it was face-up and I recognized it. I'd actually considered buying it a few months earlier but didn't. So there it was, and I needed a book for the plane trip home. I picked it up and put it in the pocket of my cargo shorts.

I started reading it at the airport the next day and couldn't put it down.

This is Irish writer Stuart Neville's first book, and it is a gripping, gritty, downright grungy but satisfying read. It's garnered lots of accolades and awards, like the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. The New York Times rated it as one of the best crime books of 2009.

So is it a crime novel? Yes and no. It's a mixture of paranormal, thriller, and crime. Maybe even allegory for a country trying to reconcile its bloody history with a shifting future. But it also provides a view of a changing Northern Ireland, into the social and economic forces that have created it, wrung it out, and left it in an uneasy marriage between past and future. The main character is Gerry Fegan, an IRA killer who served 12 years in a Northern Ireland prison. He's out of prison, and an uneasy peace has settled over the island, but Fegan is haunted. Literally and figuratively. Twelve ghosts of people he killed will not let him rest. They want vengeance, and in order to appease them, he'll have to kill the men who ordered their deaths.

Strung out on memories, guilt, booze, and the ceaseless prodding of the 12 ghosts, he sets to work on his task, seeking some kind of peace and maybe a personal redemption should he complete it. His reputation keeps him reasonably safe from the new mob politics of the country -- at least at first -- but people know about his drinking, and they know that he's taken to talking to himself. They don't see the dead like he does. And after he kills the first couple of men, the shaky alliances between several opposing factions begin to fray, and Fegan himself becomes a target.

Neville writes Fegan with a hard, gruff elegance, and you'll find yourself drawn to this man, to his brutality and attempts to find a resolution for himself and his victims. Ireland itself is a character here, as well, and Neville incorporates its circumstances and recent history into Fegan's daily stumbles in a way that makes you come to understand, on some level, why Fegan is the way he is. That's good writing and characterization, when you take a broken-down, violent, bitter drunk of a man who murdered innocents in terrorist attacks and torture and imbue him with the weight of his own past and the past of his country so that a reader will feel a bit of sympathy for his plight and his twisted mission. By the end of this book, you will, on some weird level, kind of like the guy.

Neville unfolds the plot carefully and slowly at first, but as Fegan tries to complete his mission and he, too, is in danger, Neville begins to speed the pacing until the last third of the book, when you're practically holding your breath as the final scenes loom. He creates characters and context that make the paranormal aspects utterly believable (and perhaps an allegory themselves), utterly gripping, and well worth the journey through its pages.
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Sep 03, 2012 Ed rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

After murdering 12 people, being tortured by the police and the army and locked away in Maze prison Gerry Fegin is insane. The ghosts of those he killed accompany him almost everywhere; the speak to him and he has begun to answer them. He drinks himself into insensibility every night but must still face them when he awakes. Fegin imagines (or realizes) the ghosts are telling him to kill those who were responsible for them being killed. This allows him to avoid admitting the real culpability for...more

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Aug 12, 2012 Rob Kitchin rated it 4 of 5 stars

The Twelve has attracted a lot of praise for its gritty portrayal of post-conflict Northern Ireland. And the praise is well merited. The writing is taught and economical, with each chapter crafted like a toned short story and the pages just kept turning. Neville balances excellent characterization with a deep appreciation of the politics, landscape and legacy of The Troubles; how the past casts a shadow of violence and distrust that the light of democratic politics can never fully erase; how whi...more The Twelve has attracted a lot of praise for its gritty portrayal of post-conflict Northern Ireland. And the praise is well merited. The writing is taught and economical, with each chapter crafted like a toned short story and the pages just kept turning. Neville balances excellent characterization with a deep appreciation of the politics, landscape and legacy of The Troubles; how the past casts a shadow of violence and distrust that the light of democratic politics can never fully erase; how while some people and places seemingly mutate in the name of progress their real nature and the scars of personal experience are never far beneath the surface. This is helped by using real places and some of the characters and scenes echoing real life people and events. For example, Bull O'Kane is clearly a thinly veiled Slab Murphy; the riot near the start of the book is still a semi-regular occurrence often reported on the news. Despite his regrets, his inner torture, and his obvious fondness of Marie and Ellen and his desire to protect them from an unforgiving community, Fegan is an anti-hero that is difficult to have sympathy for given his murderous life. That said, his history and character are wholly believable, as is the plot, with its politician gangsters, corrupt security services, and scheming civil servants seeking to create a status quo that enables all of them to maintain their own power and covert operations. Indeed, Neville does a good job of exploring what happens after a war has all but ended, and the ongoing legacy of lies and double deals, the fear of past wrongs being exposed, and the desire to move to a new order whilst maintaining the old hegemony. Of course, Neville is not the only novelist to portray Northern Ireland in the peace and reconciliation period, and other excellent examples include Divorcing Jack by Colin Batemen, Eureka Street by Robert McLiam Wilson, and Resurrection Man by Eoin McNamee. The Twelve is a strong addition to that set, covering the situation in the post-Good Friday Agreement/post-Omagh period and into the era of the Northern Ireland Assembly and power-sharing. It is a must read for anybody who wants to understand the complexities of maintaining peace in a post-conflict society. (less)

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Jul 29, 2012 Christopher Everest rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: crime

Jeff Abbott writes in the information on the back of the book says that this is "an astonishing debut. Brilliantly conceived, masterfully written; both a heart-pounding thriller and a stunning examination of responsibility and revenge." He is absolutely right. It is not the kind of book I normally buy (The troubles in Northern Ireland lie well within my memory and not I would have thought, fodder for fiction, however sensitively depicted).However I bought it, I imagine, thinking it was like The...more Jeff Abbott writes in the information on the back of the book says that this is "an astonishing debut. Brilliantly conceived, masterfully written; both a heart-pounding thriller and a stunning examination of responsibility and revenge." He is absolutely right. It is not the kind of book I normally buy (The troubles in Northern Ireland lie well within my memory and not I would have thought, fodder for fiction, however sensitively depicted).However I bought it, I imagine, thinking it was like The Magnificent Seven, or perhaps my OCD led me to buy books with numbers in their titles that day. Whatever the reason I bought it. And it waited on my shelves for two years. I notice now it is re-issued as "The Ghosts of Belfast". It is a very fine book. It works on so many levels - as a good story, as an examination of the mindsets of the people involved in the sectarian violence, as a psychological evaluation of the processes involved in guilt and punishment. Even as fiction it makes those of us who watched the peace process remember many of the issues that form such a dark shadow over the province and to the eternal discredit of ALL the parties involved. The list of characters seems to reflect so accurately the diversity of miscreants that combined to destroy the lives of so many families. In the figure of Gerry Fegan we see the killer trying to come to terms with the deaths he has caused, the ghosts who haunt his sleepless nights and follow him around. They demand the deaths of the "other" individuals who used Fegan as the instrument for their crimes. It is vitally a non-judgemental book - viewing both Catholic and Protestant violence with equal revulsion, but also includes in the blame those who simply stood and watched, and those who even after the Good Friday Agreement tried to use Peace as a tool of advancement for their own purposes whether that be wealth, power, or authority.This book tells a hidden story, the background fundamentally of the dealings that led towards self-government and the halls of Stormont. It mentions many of the key moments of Ulster's pain - Internment, hunger strikes, Bloody Sunday, the Omagh outrage, the release of prisoners - It is a moving book. A faceless bureaucracy is also indicted by this novel, the corruption and the apathy of a pair of national governments trying to wash their hands of a problem that history almost viewed as insoluble. The book never takes sides and strangely the reader begins to feel sorry for Fegan and his attempts to leave his past crimes behind without disappearing into a bottle of Jameson's.
This is a good book and it makes me wonder about how good his other books might be if this was his first. It touches on aspects of philosophy that people have examined since humanity first learned to use tools and then decided to hit somebody with them. Like the poor damaged individuals that came back brutalised from Vietnam, or any conflicts around the world - even to this day - the questions raised are so very important. How do we help these individuals and the societies that have nurtured them to make a new life. I feel this is an optimistic novel in that Fegan symbolically restores the old guitar and the little girl Ellen does hold his hand. This could be the answer.(less)

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Apr 24, 2012 Bill rated it 5 of 5 stars

When I was in college, I had the opportunity to spend a week in Belfast working with inner city kids. Just a week. I can't say I really remember much but the warmth of the people (except when the kids were explaining that my coat looked liked a Rangers field jacket so I probably shouldn't wear it in the New Lodge area. Don't ask), the very strange potato chip/crisp flavors, and how much they smoked. Why do I say this? Well, I can claim almost no knowledge of Belfast. One week.

But The Ghosts of B...more

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Apr 01, 2012 Mal Warwick rated it 4 of 5 stars

A Grim Story of War and Betrayal in Northern Ireland

You may never have read a murder mystery like this one. The protagonist, Gerry Fegan, is a former hit man for the IRA responsible for the deaths of twelve people (the “ghosts” of the title), and it’s never much of a mystery when he begins killing again. The mystery lies deeper, somewhere in the vicinity of his stunted family life and the treacherous relationships among the others in his violence-prone faction.

As Fegan reflects, “You can’t choos...more

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Feb 20, 2012 Criticalmick rated it 5 of 5 stars

Ten Things You Must Know About The Twelve

Ten. C.S. Lewis, like Stuart Neville, was born in Belfast. Both became writers. Both wrote extraordinary popular fiction which used elements of the fantastic to expose deeper themes.

Nine. Can redemption be found in the bottom of a glass? The first paragraph of The Ghosts of Belfast , reads: "Maybe if he had one more drink they'd leave him alone. Gerry Fagan told himself that lie before every swallow. He chased the whiskey's burn with a cool black mouthful...more

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Jan 28, 2012 Debbi rated it 5 of 5 stars

This novel opens with Gerry Fegan getting drunk off his ass, which he does all the time. Fegan is, in point of fact, a stone killer who murdered many people during the The Troubles in Belfast, Northern Ireland, where the story takes place (of course). Fegan has served time in the Maze prison and has been released. However, there's a reason Fegan has become a ~~freaking drunk~~ bit of a rummy. He is a man haunted by the ghosts of those he's killed -- the innocents who died by his hand for the causes...more

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Jun 24, 2011 James Thane rated it 5 of 5 stars

Stuart Neville, who formerly worked as a hand double for a "well-known Irish comedian," has written a brilliant, atmospheric first novel set against the continuing "troubles" in Northern Ireland.

In the public eye at least, the men who fought the brutal battles of the long struggle have now given way to the politicians and peace is in the wind. But behind the scenes there are still scores to be settled and discipline to be maintained. Additionally, some of the men who might have once been ideali...more Stuart Neville, who formerly worked as a hand double for a "well-known Irish comedian," has written a brilliant, atmospheric first novel set against the continuing "troubles" in Northern Ireland.

In the public eye at least, the men who fought the brutal battles of the long struggle have now given way to the politicians and peace is in the wind. But behind the scenes there are still scores to be settled and discipline to be maintained. Additionally, some of the men who might have once been idealists fighting for a sacred cause have now degenerated into common thugs. And while peace may be at hand, they are determined to protect themselves, their profits and the criminal enterprises they have created.

Into this combustible mix steps Gerry Fegan, an IRA killer who has recently been released from prison. Fegan, who was once one of the most feared men in Northern Ireland, is now drinking heavily, apparently slipping into psychosis, and losing his edge. He is now more pitied than feared by those who knew him in the old days.

But Fegan is a changed man. More important, he finds himself haunted by the ghosts of twelve innocent people that he killed while carrying out his missions for the IRA. These ghosts of Belfast will not let Fegan rest until he has avenged their deaths by killing the men who gave the orders that led to their deaths.

In an effort to salve his conscience, and in the hope of getting the ghosts to leave him in peace, Fegan sets about the task of taking revenge against the men who were once his masters. By doing so, he threatens not only his targets, but the entire peace process itself.

Inevitably, then, Fegan becomes a target himself, of his former bosses and of the establishment authorities who are willing to go to any lengths to keep the peace agreement from unraveling. Fairly quickly the question becomes whether Fegan can complete his mission and satisfy the spirits who torment him before his enemies catch up to him. And along the way, Fegan also begins a very tentative relationship with a woman and her young daughter who may represent his last chance at redemption.

Stuart Neville has a rare gift with language, and this book is beautifully written. The scenes are well set; the characters are expertly drawn, and you will not soon forget them. This is a bloody, violent, and ultimately heart-breaking book, and once it takes hold of you, it will not let go.(less)

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Mar 28, 2010 Carl rated it 4 of 5 stars

A taut, well plotted, action-packed (bloody and violent) mystery-thriller set in the aftermath of N. Ireland's "Troubles." If you like that type, especially on airplanes and vacations, go for it. I was a a bit confused about who was who early on, but that quickly settled down.
As often is the case with this genre, the characters are less than fully developed, although the protagonist is well drawn, and skirts the stereotype of the hard luck, hard drinking, hard up hero (being a rather brutal man...more

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Feb 25, 2010 Paul Graf rated it 4 of 5 stars

Former IRA hard man Gerry Fegan is haunted constantly by those he killed during the Troubles. All of the ghosts want revenge against those who participated in their deaths, ordered them, or didn't prevent them. Fegan, in taking vengeance against these people runs afoul of both those IRA members who still want to bomb their way to power and the newer version, the politicians who want to keep the cash flowing into their own hands. He even manages to get on the wrong side of the British who want to...more

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Feb 20, 2010 Kathleen Hagen added it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2010-audio-books, 2010-mysteries

The Ghosts of Belfast, by Stuart Neville, B. Narrated by Gerard Doyle, produced by, and downloaded fro, audible inc.

Fegan was a killer during the IRA fighting in Northern Ireland. He killed anyone he was ordered to kill. After peace came, he began to be haunted by twelve of his victims whom he tortured and killed. Day and night they were always with him and seemed to be telling him they could only be appeased if he killed the people who ordered their deaths, or contributed to their deaths. As he...more

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Dec 22, 2009 Tripp rated it 5 of 5 stars

Stuart Neville's debut, the Ghosts of Belfast, is crazy good. It is the sort of book I kept nearby at all times, so that I can could read it when I found some spare minutes. It reminded me of first reading Dennis Lehane, although that is slightly unfair to Neville, as his debut is better than Lehane's. We are lucky indeed to have another crime novelist of this caliber.

The book's anti-hero is Gerry Fegan, a former IRA enforcer and murderer. Released from prison, he is going slowly mad from drink...more

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Nov 04, 2009 Tony rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: thrillers

Neville, Stuart. THE GHOSTS OF BELFAST. (2009). ****1/2. Here’s a first novel that grabs you by the throat and doesn’t let go until the end. It’s a thriller from Irish writer Neville that is being widely hailed as the “best first novel in ten years.” I don’t know about that, but it is very good indeed. The author has a grasp of how best to plot to keep the reader turning the pages, but not in the mindless ways of most thrillers. It’s the story of Fegen, an IRA killer in Northern Ireland who has...more

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Oct 11, 2009 Tim Niland rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2009-reads

Fegan was a hit man for the IRA. During the height of The Troubles he killed a dozen people including women and children. Now out of prison, he drinks to try to get peace, but the spirits of the 12 people he killed follow him night and day, and will not allow him a moments peace. Are they only in his mind, or do they really walk beside him? He comes to realize that there is only one way to make these ghosts stop tormenting him: by taking revenge on the leaders of the movement that ordered the ki...more

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Jun 01, 2012 Carol rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction, irish, mystery, noir

I really did not expect to like this book as much as I did, for several reasons: (1) it's more violent than the usual books I read; (2) it's set against the backdrop of the Irish troubles, a history about which I feel my knowledge is deficient; (3) it's more of a thriller than a police procedural; and (4) the character is a nasty piece of work -- killer, bomber, torturer, hired thug. And yet I found myself transfixed by this gritty, noir tale.

The plot hook sucked me right in. Main character Gerr...more I really did not expect to like this book as much as I did, for several reasons: (1) it's more violent than the usual books I read; (2) it's set against the backdrop of the Irish troubles, a history about which I feel my knowledge is deficient; (3) it's more of a thriller than a police procedural; and (4) the character is a nasty piece of work -- killer, bomber, torturer, hired thug. And yet I found myself transfixed by this gritty, noir tale.

The plot hook sucked me right in. Main character Gerry Fegan is a "hard man," recently released from prison for violence he committed for the IRA. He's a legend in Belfast but prison has changed him. He doesn't want to continue down the path of violence, but, surrounded by old friends and compatriots, the pull is there. His friends don't understand why he seems so standoffish, and why he seems compelled to drink himself into oblivion. They don't know about the ghosts he sees. Fegan is being haunted by the ghosts of 12 people, his victims. He sometimes refers to them as "the followers," since they follow him around day and night. When it comes time to sleep, they begin screaming; for a while, the only way Fegan can get away from the noise is to drink until he passes out. Fegan realizes, however, that his 12 ghosts want something from him: revenge. They want him to seek out the men who ordered their deaths and kill them. There is a really harrowing scene when Fegan looks at a ghost who is holding finger and thumb up in the shape of a gun, and Fegan realizes what the ghosts want him to do.

I don't want to spoil any more of the plot but suffice it to say that this is more than just a serial killer with an unusual list of victims. Neville does a terrific job of showing the complexities and aftermath of the Troubles, of giving nuance to the people affected by the violence. That he manages to get the reader rooting for Fegan -- notwithstanding all he's done and is about to do -- is a real testament to Neville's talent as a writer.(less)

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Jan 28, 2012 Mike rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Especially for readers of crime, noir, Irish fiction,

Recommended to Mike by: A Barnes & Noble Nook Find of the Day

Shelves: 20th-century, crime, noir, ireland, irish-republican-army, belfast, ulster, unionists, dissidents, england, double-agents, murder, guilt, psychological-suspense, supernatural, series, series-debut

Stewart Neville's The Ghosts of Belfast: One Paddy's Lamentation

"I have passed with a nod of the head
Or polite meaningless words,
Or have lingered awhile and said
Polite meaningless words,
And thought before I had done
Of a mocking tale or a gibe
To please a companion
Around the fire at the club,
Being certain that they and I
But lived where motley is worn:
All changed, changed utterly:
A terrible beauty is born.

From Easter, 1916, William Butler Yeats

The words of Yeats capture the tone of The Ghosts of Be ...more

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Oct 27, 2011 David rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Hard men, Irish

Shelves: contemporary, ireland, thriller, crime, audiobook

This is a violent, bloody novel where the violence and bloodshed actually serves a purpose, rather than just trying to shock the reader. It's a revenge story, a political thriller, and a tale of redemption, with the main character being a former IRA thug who's now trying to atone for his past crimes. His atonement, however, consists of killing a lot more people, because the ghosts of his former victims won't leave him alone until he does.

The question of whether the ghosts are real or only in Ger...more This is a violent, bloody novel where the violence and bloodshed actually serves a purpose, rather than just trying to shock the reader. It's a revenge story, a political thriller, and a tale of redemption, with the main character being a former IRA thug who's now trying to atone for his past crimes. His atonement, however, consists of killing a lot more people, because the ghosts of his former victims won't leave him alone until he does.

The question of whether the ghosts are real or only in Gerry Fegan's head is only slightly interesting. They are real to him, and as a result, he's put on a path of bloody retribution in which he takes down former comrades, party bosses, and other important people in the fragile new peace of Northern Ireland. Initially introduced to us as a merciless thug and killer, someone who did hard time in prison and deserved it and probably should have stayed there longer, Fegan becomes one of the most sympathetic characters in the book. He wants nothing more than to wash the blood off his hands, but he can't because his ghosts won't let him. So he has to keep killing, and as we learn the stories behind each of the men he kills and the ghosts demanding the next sacrifice, we see that Fegan was never more than a small cog in a big, bloody, grinding machine. Everyone in Northern Ireland, from the IRA to the Unionists to the Brits, played very, very dirty. You have to keep reminding yourself just why Fegan is being haunted or you'd start to like the guy. He genuinely wants to redeem himself, and yet his killings threaten to unleash a new wave of violence.

This sort of loose cannon run amok story is standard fare for Hollywood, and I think The Ghosts of Belfast would make a great movie, though they'd probably screw it up. It's not written like a movie, though. There is a lot of introspection and angst and some delving into the politics of the "movement" before the peace accords and the current state of the Irish criminal underworld. The writing is taut, not overly verbose, not full of narrative flourishes, and lean on descriptive details, but it was good work and carried the story along. Most of the non-Fegan characters aren't developed much, since they're basically ducks being lined up to die so all you need to know is why, but this is a story where characters definitely take a back seat to plot and action.

For all the bloodshed, it was never gratuitous and never went on overly long. I found this is a compelling listen with a good plot, and will look for more from this author.(less)

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topics	posts	views	last activity
Mic Breaks Only: Ghosts of Belfast: Fin! (Full Book Discussion)	8	13	Jul 31, 2012 03:42pm
Mic Breaks Only: Ghosts of Belfast: Chapters 41 - 50	5	4	Jul 31, 2012 01:34pm
Mic Breaks Only: Ghosts of Belfast: Chapters 31 - 40	4	7	Jul 31, 2012 12:50pm
Mic Breaks Only: Ghosts of Belfast: Chapters 21 - 30	4	8	Jul 31, 2012 10:41am
Mic Breaks Only: Ghosts of Belfast: Chapters 11 - 20	8	5	Jul 31, 2012 09:46am
Mic Breaks Only: Ghosts of Belfast: Chapters 1 - 10	11	13	Jul 31, 2012 09:11am
First in the Detective John Lennon series? No...no...no	2	23	Jul 22, 2012 11:09pm

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About Stuart Neville

I have been a musician, a composer, a teacher, a salesman, a film extra, a baker and a hand double for a well known Irish comedian, but I'm currently a partner in a successful multimedia design business in the wilds of Northern Ireland.

I have published short stories in Thuglit, Electric Spec and Every Day Fiction. THE TWELVE is my first novel, and will be published in the UK and Commonwealth by Ha...more

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Books by Stuart Neville

Collusion (Jack Lennon Investigations #2)

Stolen Souls (Jack Lennon Investigations #3)

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Quotes from The Ghosts of Belfast

“Hate is a terrible thing. It's a wasteful, stupid emotion. You can hate someone with all your heart, but it'll never do them a bit of harm. The only person it hurts is you. You can spend your days hating, letting it eat away at you, and the person you hate will go on living just the same. So, what's the point?” — 7 people liked it

“You can't choose where you belong, and where you don't. But what if the place you don't belong is the only place you have left?” — 5 people liked it

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The Ghosts of Belfast (Jack Lennon Investigations #1)

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