Ivonne Rovira's Reviews > Holding

First for Americans, Graham Norton, the Irish host of a comic talk show, is as well known in the United Kingdom as his counterparts Stephen Colbert, Seth Meyers and Jimmy Kimmel are on this side of the Pond. Norton sallies into new territory with this funny, intriguing debut novel that follows the exploits of the bumbling Sergeant P.J. Collins. His Irish village of Duneen is so sleepy that Collins has never really had to do a serious day’s of police work in his life; that all changes when a construction crew unearths a skeleton at an old farm.

The presumption is that the remains belong to Tommy Burke, a handsome lothario who disappeared 23 years ago. The roly-poly 53-year-old Collins resents that egotistical Detective Superintendent Linus Dunne, dispatched from Cork, is presumed to be more capable of discerning what happened so long ago. In Norton’s novel, nothing’s what you’d expect — and readers will savor this spellbinding novel with its electrifying denouement. I loved the well-meaning Collins, and I hope that we’ll see him a sequel.

In the spirit of full disclosure, I received this book free from NetGalley and Atria Books in return for an honest review.