The Blood Miracles

304pp, John Murray, £14.99, ebook £6.99

Picking up just where McInerny’s firecracker, Baileys Prize-winning first novel – The Glorious Heresies – left off, we are plunged back into the criminal underworld of Cork: “This, like so many of Ryan Cusack’s f---ups, begins with ecstasy.” Ryan, whom we left at a suicidally low ebb, faces an ultimatum from his girlfriend: her or the mob? The novel zings with effervescent dialogue and intelligent observation; the only drawback, perhaps, is that the plot is too soft on Ryan. Toby Lichtig