When his mother moves him and his young brother to a cottage near Ennis in County Clare[4] his only thought is how to get back to a life of crime in Dublin.

Eventually he steals a Skoda car and goes back, only to find things have changed and he has no place there.

The family is warned by the farmer’s mother to put out a bowl of milk every night, but they consider this a mere superstition.

The Irish Times comments that Kate Thompson "conveys extraordinarily well not only Dublin's mean streets but country rhythms, and how city trends are infecting every town in Ireland".

[5] The Guardian comments that in the novel, "all events are true to the characters involved and help to reveal something about them".