Location: Ireland
Member Since:
May 14, 2012
Pól Ó Duibhir
Smashwords book reviews by Pól Ó Duibhir
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The Obituarist
on May 14, 2012
Alec said he could get me one from the morgue. It wasn't a hundred per cent kosher but nobody would ever know. That was my first and only time to make use of the morgue. Alec Reid was a writer and a lecturer in Trinity College, Dublin, and he was offering to get me Jeremiah Dempsey's obituary from the morgue in the Irish Times . Jerry was, however, still very much alive. In fact, I was to be one of a number of teenagers who would interview him on Telefís Éireann's programme "The Person in Question". Jerry had been General Manager of Aer Lingus (the national airline) for the previous thirty years. Newspapers always kept a running obit on people in the limelight so they could be published at very short notice and I was getting surreptitious sight of Jerry Dempsey's as part of my interviewer's brief. Exciting times. So I was more than interested to see what Paul Water's Obituarist would get up to. And I wasn't disappointed. The book is written in a light vein and a little in the style of Boy's Own. It includes a line up of WWII RAF characters ranging from stiff upper lip to ginger pubic hair. The reader follows the story through the character of the Obituarist himself as successive obituaries paint in the colourful characteristics of the members of wartime TripleX mission as they each lose their last dogfight with the grim reaper. And all the while the Obituarist is growing in stature. There is, however, a lurking element of Greek tragedy in this drama, right up to the dramatic final obituary. A thoroughly enjoyable read.
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The Obituarist
on Oct. 20, 2012
Enjoyed this no end. Keeps you guessing and thrashing about. Interesting contrast to Paul Waters' book of the same title. Amazing how a single title can have two totally distinct and excellent plots. These are my first trips into ebooks and I'm hooked.