The Ghost Factory
By Jenny McCartney
4th Estate, 272pp, £12.99/$17.99
The Ghost Factory is set in Northern Ireland at the tail end of the Troubles. While there may be an uneasy peace between the paramilitary groups, certain cycles of in-house violence – vigilantism, extortion, punishment beatings, score-settling of all kinds – are intensifying. Walled up in the “raging wee cantons” of Belfast, decent, amusing, thoughtful people try not to get sucked in; to bend the arc of their lives away from men with pot bellies, weaselly eyes and arsenic in the soul.
