A review by srash
The Ghosts of Belfast by Stuart Neville

2.0

2.5 stars. I wanted to like this book more than I did. The author is a good writer who invokes an interesting premise. But ultimately I thought the book tried too hard to make Gerry Fegan a likable/sympathetic character. Maybe I'm just inherently inclined to be contrary, but the more the book doubled down on his reasons for his revenge campaign, the more I disliked him because it seemed like a cop-out. The ending was especially disappointing. I think one of the main issues is the characters are quite thin, and this would have benefited from more complex characterization for all the characters.

At the end of the day, he still had murdered a dozen people on his own, including innocent civilians, and displacing the blame for it onto other people, even if they were culpable, struck me as morally dishonest and really rubbed me the wrong way. Ultimately, the character I was most invested in was one of his intended targets (a mole embedded by the police, who has his fair share of blood on his own hands but seems to be more honest about his role in the violence.)

I thought about reading the next book in the series because it seems to focus on another character, but from what I have skimmed of it, I don't think I'll enjoy it any better.