THE BEDSIDE READ

In Jan Carson’s

The Fire Starters (Doubleday Ireland, approx €14.99, out April 4), it’s summer in Belfast city, but no one is welcoming the heat. The sun is too much, but the flames come from human hands. And they get so out of control, the authorities struggle to handle it; the fires are condemned, the time for them should be over. Dr Jonathan Murray is almost obsessive over his newborn daughter Sophie. And he has fears – unnatural fears that she might not be as innocent as she should be. He doesn’t know what to do if he’ll have to save her. Sammy Agnew, who was born just five minutes up the road from Dr Murray, has his own demons and fears to wrestle with. He is fearful of the hatred in his teenage son, Sam’s eyes. Worried that the violence will consume him. Unusual, mystical and so sublimely written;

I read it in a single sitting.