The Devil I Know

Kilroy, Claire

ISBN 10: 080212237X / ISBN 13: 9780802122377

Published by Grove Press, Black Cat, 2014

Item in very good condition! Textbooks may not include supplemental items i.e. CDs, access codes etc. Seller Inventory # 00069365973

Synopsis:

In The Devil I Know, award-winning writer Claire Kilroy delivers a delicious novel, a cautionary tale of financial excess set during the Irish property bubble.

Tristram St. Lawrence has not been home for years—ever since he missed his mother’s deathbed in favor of going on a bender, the thirteenth Earl of Howth is not welcome in the family castle. Now sober, he lives in self-imposed exile, and his main confidant is his sponsor, a mysterious businessman known only as M. Deauville.

One day, when his plane is unexpectedly diverted to Dublin, Tristram ends up where he started, and an old acquaintance, a bully from his school days who’s now making a name in construction, pitches to Tristram an ambitious development project. The trouble is, M. Deauville thinks it’s a good idea, and before Tristram knows it he’s settled in Howth under his father’s baleful gaze and is up to his neck in funding proposals, zoning approvals, and the personal life of his business partner.

A wry and timely skewering of a country, a man, and an entire international financial system descended into madness, The Devil I Know establishes Claire Kilroy as a vigorous and wonderful new talent.

Reviews: The thirteenth Earl of Howth, Tristram St. Lawrence, a translator of some repute, returns to his ancestral Irish castle home after a long absence only because the plane taking him to a conference in Florida makes an emergency landing in Dublin. Before he knows it, he’s swept into a business partnership with an old school chum, developer Desmond Hickey, who’s visualizing making it big in the Irish land boom. All along, the skids are greased by shadowy financier M. Deauville, who had first reached out to St. Lawrence after his near-fatal bender and had since served as his AA sponsor. The euphoria of making unimaginable amounts of money culminates in an all-night meeting with Hickey and St. Lawrence and the golden circle of Ireland’s money men, making bids on properties in Britain and Shanghai, all financed with debt. And when the bubble bursts, payment must be made. In crisp prose and a cleverly structured narrative, Kilroy (Tenderwire, 2006) casts a sharply satiric eye on international finance gone awry. Smart fiction based on fact. --Michele Leber

Bibliographic Details

Title: The Devil I Know
Publisher: Grove Press, Black Cat
Publication Date: 2014
Binding: Soft cover
Condition: Very Good