The Convictions of John Delahunt - Softcover

Historian Hughes puts his knowledge of mid-19th-century Ireland to masterly use in his chilling first novel. This beautifully written tale of cruelty and redemption is as unforgettable as it is harrowing.

Fascinating. A mesmerizing, utterly convincing, utterly sympathetic tale of life in Victorian Dublin. A realistic, complex tale that raises important, topical questions about society, government and morality. And the writing itself is really quite terrific. An exceptional historical mystery.

A Kafkaesque study of an amoral weakling consumed by an unrestrained bureaucracy.

A quite exceptional novel. The world he creates has echoes of Kafka and Orwell. Totally convincing. It draws you in like a trap.--C. J. Sansom, author of Dissolution and Winter in Madrid

Compelling and eerily authentic. Read it and be grateful to be alive in our day and age.--Robert Goddard

Unputdownable. Chillingly portrayed. A highly sophisticated first novel.--Charles Palliser, author of The Quincunx

Extraordinarily detailed world, impeccably researched. So superbly written that it soars as a masterly work of fiction. Utterly compelling.

Just about everything pays off in this engrossing 'Crime and Punishment' style tale. Fascinating. The novel is mean and wicked and really well done.

A remarkable first novel. At once a close character study and a sweeping panorama of 'dissectionists' who buy bodies for medical research and the 'resurrectionists' who dig them up, this fascinating book is a stirring work of fiction and a perceptive chapter in Ireland's social history.--Marilyn Stasio

Andrew Hughes has created an eerily authentic world where one's neighbors cannot be trusted and the authorities even less. John's rapid decline from aimless student to cold-blooded killer is not only chilling, but sophisticated in its telling. Superb.

Set in Dublin in the 1840s and based on the true story of the murder of a child, this dazzling literary debut - at once a historical novel and crime thriller - will appeal to fans of Andrew Taylor, Andrew Miller and Peter Ackroyd.