If there is such a thing as a high-class Irish thriller tradition - and don't tell anyone, but I think it may be about to develop, if it isn't already here - then Colin Bateman deserves a good deal of the credit for creating it. Unfortunately, he also blew it sky-high with his fondness for straying into episodes of violence and tragedy, not to mention his mad, bad sense of humour, both of which tend to have reviewers reaching beyond these shores for comparison, notably with Karl Hiaasen and Irvine Welsh. Bateman, however, is his own man (in fact, the fast-talking, quick-thinking Dan Starkey has more in common with the gum-chewing PIs of classic noir than with Welsh's inarticulate Picts or Hiaasen's off-the-wall weirdos). This bittersweet romp scampers effortlessly from Belfast to Dublin, Amsterdam to Cannes, confirms Starkey as one of the cutest creations on the contemporary crime scene, insults just about everybody - check out the scene on the plane where he manages to offend Catholics and Aborigines in the same sentence - and ends with a bombshell.
