Divorcing Jack: A Dan Starkey Mystery (Dan Starkey Mysteries)

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Later, when Starkey attempts to call Patricia, he hears her being kidnapped on the other end of the line. When the police suspect Starkey for the murder of Margaret and her mother, as well as the kidnapping of Patricia, Starkey is forced to tell the entire story to Parker. Parker reluctantly agrees to help Starkey. Still, though the references to Northern Ireland politics may confuse some readers, the Hiaasen-esque prevails. More recently, Bateman has started the Mystery Man series, about the owner of a struggling mystery bookshop in Belfast, who has to contend with the abandoned clients of the detective agency next door that goes bust. Despite these weaknesses, however, Dan usually, somehow, saves the day in the end, and despite his weaknesses I can’t help but like him. Maybe because he’s the stereotypicall Northern Irishman or maybe just because he reminds me of home, but whatever it is I would advise anyone who is a Carl Hiaasen fan to read Bateman’s novels (he has also written non-Starkey books such as Empire State, Maid of the Mistand Cycle of Violence (aka “Crossmaheart” after a film adaptation). As long ago as the 1990s, Bateman’s trademark of writing comically about horrific subjects brought accusations of inappropriate tone, which can only have increased in a time of “trigger warnings” and pre-publication “sensitivity readings”. Does he feel his imagination is more constrained? “I’m not aware of being more careful. I think it’s a dangerous way of writing if you are working within such limits. But there is probably somewhere in there now an in-built censorship in that you know there are just things you can’t say. One of my books is called Mohammed Maguire and that wouldn’t be published now. But I am aware of possibly controversial language in the play, and haven’t been asked to change anything.” So theatre is braver than publishing? “It seems so. But I’m going to find out when the play meets an audience.”

Of Wee Sweetie Mice and Men (1997) is predominantly set in New York after Dan, now re-united with his wife, Patricia (pregnant with another man’s child) accepts an offer to follow Fat Boy McMaster, a Northern Irish boxer, in his efforts to win the Heavyweight belt against Mike Tyson. In the process, Dan hopes to get a book out of it. But along the way, Dan manages to antagonise the IRA, the UVF, an obscure sect called the Sons of Mohammad and Save the Whale campaigners. What does the model for Sean think of Nutcase? “He hasn’t read it yet or seen any of the clips we’ve put up for promotional purposes. He’s coming to the premiere so that will be interesting.” Given the current tension over ownership of stories, I was surprised the writer didn’t want his subject to read it. “ He didn’t want to. It’s a holdover from the illness, which doesn’t go away. He’s doing extremely well, but, from being a great reader, he tends not to read anything now, as the concentration isn’t there. Who knows the cause? It could be the illness or it could be the extremely strong medication he takes.”

That being said and done, this was a first novel, and it was more than good enough. I would hope that with time, the author has achieved more depth and complexity. Even he if he hasn’t – it’s still very very funny. I have to say that I totally disagree with the other comments on this film. Apart from the excess of swearing (am a bit of a prude), I found this film to be funny and a refreshing change from all the doom/gloom and disaster that seems to be normally associated with productions centering around Northern Ireland/Ulster/The Province (see movie for reference and explanation). There is a lot in the movie that I can relate to for some reason, even though I am Scottish, not Irish and have never lived amongst "The Troubles". The story (and screen play adapted by the author - an Irishman - so not quite sure where the comment about poor representation by the British comes in) is a simple one, and shows the humour and sense of openness and idea of ridiculousness displayed and recognised by the Irish. It doesn't hide the fact that there no go areas in Belfast and its surrounds, it doesn't hide the fact that there is violence going on, but neither does it hide the fact that the Irish are warm, funny, intelligent human beings. I enjoyed David Thewlis' performance, but feel that he is a very under-rated actor, being used for mostly "baddies" or yokel character parts on both sides of the Atlantic.

a b Hardyment, Christina (28 November 1998). "Books: Spoken Word – Arts & Entertainment". The Independent . Retrieved 19 January 2012. [ dead link] That experience seeded one of the themes of the play: “Is the cure as bad as the illness in some respects? But can you take the risk of stopping the medication to see if it has gone away? These are terrible choices.” But the writer, who grew up in a loyalist community in Bangor, in Co Down, says that the Northern Irish civil war will always be a central subject for him. He is finishing a childhood memoir, Thunder and Lightning. He holds up to the Zoom screen a photo showing him as a young child wearing a handkerchief mask and sun-glasses, brandishing a branch as if it were a gun and making a "no surrender" victory sign. This was his costume for pretending to be a member of the Ulster Defence Association, the loyalist paramilitary force. "Instead of Cowboys and Indians, we played UDA v IRA. We would dress like that, go out, stop traffic and ask drivers if we could look in their boot."Northern Irish columnist Dan Starkey and American journalist Charles Parker are sent out to cover the upcoming elections, in which the charismatic, former victim of the war, Michael Brinn seems the obvious winner, campaigning on a platform of disarmament and peace between the warring factions in Northern Ireland. Starkey, however, is not impressed with Brinn's promises, believing he has heard it from politicians before.

He stresses that his own sufferings have been a fraction of his son’s, and is also aware that one of the multiple current panics over literary ethics involves who has the right to write about other lives. “My son very much wanted the story told but, in doing that, it also exposes the things that helped make him ill in the first place. So it’s a fine line to tread.” What does the model for Sean think of Nutcase? “He hasn’t read it yet or seen any of the clips we’ve put up for promotional purposes. He’s coming to the premiere, so that will be interesting.” Given the current tension about ownership of stories, I was surprised the writer didn’t want his subject to read it. “He didn’t want to. It’s a holdover from the illness, which doesn’t go away. He’s doing extremely well, but, from being a great reader, he tends not to read anything now, as the concentration isn’t there. Who knows the cause? It could be the illness or it could be the extremely strong medication he takes.”

D. Keith's prediction hits the bullseye. Colin Bateman went on to write many more novels, including nine more Dan Starkey novels, and currently ranks among the top contemporary authors in Northern Ireland. I wouldn’t consider Dan to be the hero of these books, but in fact the stereotypical anti-hero. He suffers from many flaws, he cheats on his wife constantly, is a hardened alcoholic, smokes like a train, has doubts about his stepson and how he should treat another man’s child, and hates the other man. Dan also has a vulnerable side, most evident perhaps in Of Wee Sweetie Mice, when Patricia has returned to Belfast, and Dan wanders the streets of New York in search of company. He eventually seeks solace in a peep show where his only intent is to talk. When I was thirteen I woke up in the middle of the night and found my brother pissing in my typewriter case. I decided there and then that there must be something wonderful about alcohol." It is encouraging to find someone who can look at the agony of what has been and not want to make Hidden Agenda 2: The Aftermath. This is essentially a comedy. Starkey tries to be heroic, but without cynicism he's lost. The bad guys have been watching too many Mafia movies and Gant seems incapable of an expression that isn't carved in teak.

Nutcase is striking within Bateman’s output in featuring just a tiny oblique reference to the decades of Northern Irish violence, when one of the many psychiatrists (the two actors share 23 minor characters between them) opens the wrong file and confuses Sean with a bomb victim. The novel was generally well received by critics, with praise going to Bateman's humour and wit and his creation of a likeable " anti-hero" and most criticism concerning the novel's plot. In 2000’s Turbulent Priests, Dan’s book on Fat Boy McMaster has finally been published and Dan’s once again looking for work. He’s hired by the Catholic Church in Northern Ireland to travel to Wraithlin Island of the coast of Belfast and ghost write a new bible with a little girl whom the locals believe to be the second coming. But Dan has his doubts. After all, why did they hire a Protestant? And if this isn’t hard enough for Dan, he soon discovers the only pub on the island has been closed by the reformed residents. I’d heard good things about Colin Bateman, and decided to start with his first, a 1998 thriller set during the troubles in Northern Ireland. Journalist Dan Starkey commences an ill thought out affair with Margaret; a woman he meets on one of his solo binges in the Belfast bars. His wife Patricia finds out and throws him out. As Dan tries to get to grips with what has become of his life, Margaret is murdered whilst he has nipped out for pizza and he becomes the focus of a man hunt, but what do Margaret's last words mean...?

The action in the novel is intense, the emotions extreme. Dan Starkey finds himself at the epicenter of a vortex propelled by three engines: wife Patricia catching him kissing Margaret, his unwittingly selling a much sought after cassette tape, his involvement as a journalist with an American interviewing the country's future Prime Minister. Her name was Lee Cooper. Her parents had a warped sense of humour. And her friends called her Jean. Colin Bateman provides readers with a hefty dose of what it must have been like to live in Belfast during the Northern Ireland conflict ('The Troubles') that lasted thirty years beginning in the 1960s, a time when Protestants and Catholics clashed night and day.