Mike McCormack: This Plague of Souls

How do you rebuild the world? How do you put it back together? Nealon returns to his family home in Ireland for the first time in years, only to be greeted by a completely empty house. No heat or light, no furniture, no sign of his wife or child anywhere. It seems the world has forgotten that he even existed. The one exception is a persistent caller on the telephone, someone who seems to know everything about Nealon's life, his recent bother with the law and, more importantly, what has happened to his family. All Nealon needs to do is talk with him. But the more he talks the closer Nealon gets to the same trouble he was in years ago, tangled in the very crimes of which he claims to be innocent. Part roman noir, part metaphysical thriller, This Plague of Souls is a story for these fractured times, dealing with how we might mend the world and the story of a man who would let the world go to hell if he could keep his family together.