My Father's House, by Joseph O'Connor

My Father’s House

Joseph O’Connor

Harvill Secker, £20, 288 pages

We know that Delia Kiernan means business, because she is driving a diplomatic car at speed through Rome in the middle of a foul night in December 1943. We know that Hugh O’Flaherty means business because he threatens to beat up a hospital orderly even though he is a priest. We know that the orderly means business because he refuses to treat the figlio di puttana Nazi that they have brought to his hospital, until O’Flaherty turns violent. We know that the seriously ill patient means – or at least once meant – business because he is not a Nazi at all but Major Sam Derry, a Royal Artilleryman and escaped prisoner of war.