McNamee’s gift for intense imagery sets a most atmospheric mood

You don’t really read Eoin McNamee for his plots – though he is superbly good at them, and can nudge a gripping conspiracy thriller to life with just the right touches of jittery menace. You read him for his sentences

Fiction: The Vogue, By Eoin McNamee, Faber & Faber, €16.45

Eoin McNamee’s novels dependably evoke a very specific mood. Imagine a lonely man living on the outskirts of a provincial town – perhaps somewhere near the Northern Irish border, or perhaps in the English midlands. The weather is bad. The few buildings nearby have long since succumbed to decay. The man carries a heavy burden of secrets. He moves furtively through a world ...