Read the first chapters of the novel Barely a Crime by Robert Ovies. If you like what you’re reading, visit the novel’s page to learn more or order!
PROLOGUE
Kieran Lynch was born in a pine bed in his parents’ lower flat in West Belfast, Ireland, on a night that was, for the middle of summer, unusually cold.
His mother, Maureen, cried and laughed out loud when she saw her new son wailing in the Widow Shea’s fat hands, free of his umbilical cord and his purple coloring, his hair already as black as pitch.
Kieran’s father, who was called Thomas rather than Tom and who had stayed downstairs in the kitchen with Kieran’s four-year-old sister, Colleen, let out a whoop at the sound of his firstborn son crying and his wife laughing. With little Colleen bouncing in his arms, he danced like the sailor he had been for more than ten of his forty-seven years, wheeling in tight little circles toward the stairs leading to the upstairs bedroom, where he knew that everything was surely better than fine.
A sharp knock at the back door interrupted his dance and his momentum; a knock at the back door meant friends or relatives, for sure.
Thomas hesitated, undecided about the moment’s highest priority.
A second knock sounded as the Widow Shea rushed red-faced and beaming down the stairs and fairly shouted to the proud new father, “Well, for heaven’s sake, you’d better come see your own handsome son, man!” She rushed to gather up Colleen as Thomas’ wife called his name from upstairs and laughed out loud again, bright as a bell.
But the knock sounded again, this time more insistent than before, so Thomas exclaimed, “God’s breath. This’d better be good!” and took four quick steps to open the door.
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