No one can tell tales like the Irish. I look at my bookshelves (not to mention the piles set here, there and everywhere), and I see a plethora of Irish names on the spines and covers. One would swear that they spring from their mothers’ wombs talking and writing, so seemingly practiced are they at the gift of gab. That said, some of the darkest and grimmest literature seems to emanate from the Emerald Isle as well.

I was thinking of this as I got deeper and deeper into THOSE WE LEFT BEHIND, the latest offering from Stuart Neville. While outside of his well-known and noteworthy Belfast novels, Neville brings to the table his trademark powers of characterization and storytelling, sharply honed, in this tale of consequence and revenge.

THOSE WE LEFT BEHIND is set very much in Belfast’s present, with The Troubles either a story passed down from elders or a raw and fading memory, depending on one’s age. Crime, however, never takes a holiday, politics aside. So it is that the release of Ciaran Devine from detention causes a stir that ripples through the city. As a 12-year-old, Ciaran admitted to killing his foster father. He was detained as a juvenile, as was Thomas, his older brother. Thomas was released when he turned 18, and, as the book opens, Ciaran is being released as well, on probation.

"While outside of his well-known and noteworthy Belfast novels, Neville brings to the table his trademark powers of characterization and storytelling, sharply honed, in this tale of consequence and revenge."

DCI Serena Flanagan was the only person to whom Ciaran would speak at the time of the murder and readily confessed his complicity. However, for eight long years, Serena has harbored doubts about the veracity of Ciaran's confession and believes that Thomas was the doer. These doubts have been shared, separately, by Daniel Rolston, the son of the murdered man, who is convinced that Thomas was the true killer and that the brothers both lied as to the reason he was killed. His death and the besmirching of the family name have had an effect that has reverberated down through the years, to the extent that Daniel is determined to have his revenge. Ciaran's probation officer, a woman named Paula Cunningham, is caught in the middle and forms a somewhat rocky alliance with Serena to attempt to arrive at a truth that neither one of them may be entirely comfortable in unearthing.

Meanwhile, Serena begins interjecting herself into another case that is all but closed. A terminally ill friend of hers is, with her husband, the victim of a murder-suicide...at least that’s how the investigating officer is going to write it up, and it looks like he is entirely correct. Serena isn’t so sure and wants the matter probed further, much to the chagrin and anger of her supervisor and the officer in charge of the case. There are sides to Serena, a cancer survivor herself, revealed during the course of the novel that are mildly disturbing. Still, however, she ultimately manages to get to the dark heart of the truth.

Those unfamiliar with Neville’s distinguished body of work would do well to start with THOSE WE LEFT BEHIND before diving into the darker and more complex Belfast novels. Those already familiar with Neville’s stark magic will find themselves looking at Belfast through a somewhat different, though equally disturbing, perspective than they have encountered with his other books.