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Ghosts of the past

Painful memories resurface for a retired detective when his help is sought with a cold case murder

4 March 2023

9:00 AM

4 March 2023

9:00 AM

Old God’s Time Sebastian Barry

Faber, pp.300, 18.99

Nothing is quite what it seems in Sebastian Barry’s latest novel, and that isn’t meant entirely as a compliment. While Old God’s Time is a powerful story, I will surely not be the only reader who’s occasionally baffled by its cast of ghosts presented initially as living people. After 200 pages, I lost count of the number of times one character explains to another that the person they think they have just seen is actually dead.

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