Devil’s Day

Andrew Michael Hurley John Murray €15.99 Set on the Lancashire moors, where the sheep farmers have long memories and fertile imaginations, Andrew Michael Hurley’s masterly second novel amply confirms the promise of his prize-winning debut, The Loney. It tells the story of a young man returning to the farm where he grew up, with his pregnant wife in tow, and combines, in near-perfect measure, scenes of true pastoral lyricism with much darker episodes. Are the locals just being superstitious when they see the hand of the Devil behind every natural disaster and unforeseen tragedy? Readers will have to make up their own minds.