Book review: Dystopian tale of future Ireland earns its place on Booker longlist

Though it feels like a near-future Ireland, featuring a police state descending into civil war, it is difficult to put a date on Paul Lynch’s Prophet Song. Mobile phones are in everyday use but the Passport Office is back on Dublin’s Molesworth Street, and people start their cars with keys. A government elected two years earlier has descended into totalitarianism and clearly hasn’t stinted on defence spending, having acquired helicopter gunships, a warplane, artillery, and ...