Turbulent Priests

Once again Colin Bateman delivers a book that is both hilarious and outrageous. This is the third in the Dan Starkey series and in this one, Dan, his wife and newborn baby go to Wrathlin Island. Dan has been sent there to investigate the rumors that the Messiah has been born there and is about to start school.

He finds the island is a place that believes they are sheltering God’s daughter and are working hard to protect her. The islands council have taken the law into their on hands and have outlawed liquor as well was television. Dan is suffering without his drink and his entertainment but manages to wise-crack his way around the island, making more enemies than friends. Facing guns, knives, beatings and a blind population, he show more struggles to expose the truth. Although the book stretches the imagination almost to the breaking point, the journey is a fun one.

Turbulent Priests is chock full of witty dialogue, humor, desperation and weirdness. I am already looking forward to my next Dan Starkey book. show less

Turbulent Priests was my first Colin Bateman. I'd happened across four of his books a few months back and decided to grab them; a new, unknown-to-me author.

I thought the writing was often superb, but I didn't like the story all that much. I liked the dark humor, sharp and biting; many times it was laugh-out-loud funny. Kind of an aside, but his writing reminded me a bit of Christopher Moore, although Moore is wackier and less dark.

I really wanted to like this book more, but found the overall story just too depressing. I am tempted add a star for the Chris de Burgh mention (another good jab of humor fitted in), but it didn't make up for gloomy theme(s) of the entire story. (Maybe if he'd gone with Chris Rea instead, I could have bumped show more it up another star.)

Anyway, I didn't realize that this was the 3rd book in the Dan Starkey series. Hmmm, I gotta be honest, by the end of the book I was ready to put a bullet into Dan Starkey myself. He was funny as hell, but also a knucklehead. I'd prefer a funny guy who was NOT a knucklehead. Just sayin'.... show less

There was an exhilarating originality about this novel - an isolated community off the coast of Northern Ireland becomes convinced one of its number is the second coming of Christ. Journalist Dan Starkey arrives to investigate. It becomes clear that this is one of a series of books featuring Starkey, and given that I've not encountered him before it was a bit like crashing a party halfway through, but it was one where I felt welcome, and everything the reader needs to know about what has gone before is economically conveyed without disturbing the narrative. There's a lot of drinking (despite the fact that the island is "dry") and a lot of wisecracking. The humour reminded me of my husband - frequently corny to an almost unbearable show more degree, but amongst it some really cracking humour that makes wading through the corn that bit less painful. And you really have to applaud the one-liner at the end of chapter 20, whilst acknowledging the complexity of the scaffolding that had to be erected around it to permit it to be delivered.

I was hoping the book might bring me a tiny bit closer to understanding Northern Ireland and the whole religious divide. "Protestantism never has and never will be about religion" remarks Starkey in chapter 1. "It's about property and culture and spitting at Catholics". I was none the wiser, but that observation summed up in a nutshell everything about sectarianism that is baffling to outsiders.

I enjoyed the first half more than the second - there was a lot of good personality-driven plot and a lot of good humour. From halfway on, though, something happened. It became like a screenplay in waiting. Guns and fisticuffs and overwrought near-death experiences took over. Despite some pretty graphic action, you knew everything was going to be broadly OK: is the author really going to allow his serial character to be killed off? There are surely plenty more wisecracks to come. show less

Journalist Dan Starkey has been asked by the Primate of all Ireland to investigate reports of the Second Coming which has supposedly happened on the small island of Wrathlin. Why Dan? Well apparantly an old acquaintance of his started things off by say he'd had visions from God telling him to expect the new Messiah. Father Frank Flynn had returned home to Wrathlin after being disowned by his parrish in Crossmaheart and after the reported visions and their seeming accuracy over the birth of the child had distanced himself from the Church and the Cardinal wants to know what's going on. He'd sent a priest but he hadn't returned and was presumed converted. Dan is sent in under cover of using the island as a retreat to write the novel he'd show more always wanted to. Can he find out what's really happening and will things turn out like he expects? Not a chance, this is Dan Starkey after all.

The black comedy, satire and caustic wit all make a return in this 3rd adventure for anti-hero Dan Starkey and I wouldn't have it any other way. This is probably slightly better than the other two in the series that I've read so far but not quite good enough to give it that extra half. show less

Another book that turned up when clearing out the attic. I'd only read this once before it got put up there which I think must have been my opinion of it at the time. I wanted something else to read, and hoped that this would be better than the book I'd just finished.

It has been several years since I first - and last - read this. I have a vague recollection of the story but not enough to spoil anything. It's the only Colin Bateman book I've read, though I am aware of his other works. I thought the plot sounded interesting and especially liked the nod to Monty Python on the front cover: Is she the new messiah or just a very naughty girl?

It was a decent enough read and fairly easy to get through. The plot went along at a decent enough show more pace and certainly kept me engrossed enough to finish it off. There were a couple of parts that had me baffled as to why they were even there. The whole thing about the 'Bill Oddie' character was bizarre and I certainly didn't like the fact that a well-loved personality was given such treatment. I also didn't especially like the importance that alcohol had in the story either, plus it did seem to reinforce the Irish as drunk stereotype.

Some of the characters were annoying, the majority were two-dimensional, but I think it was supposed to be the plot that was the main focal point, not the characters and so it didn't matter how appealing they were. The ending was suitably dramatic with a couple of twists and turns although it did leave some questions unanswered with regards to the 'miracles'. And a nice little amusing spin at the very end.

Not a bad book, but I think I can see why it got relegated to the attic. It's not one I would want to read again, and I think if I'd not discovered it recently, I wouldn't have done! show less

If you like Bateman's other books, you'll like this one. Freelance reporter/writer Dan Starkey is off with his new wife and baby to a remote island off the Irish coast to see if the island's new baby is really the second coming… It's full of Bateman's usual very clever wit and plot.

Like all of Colin Bateman's books, this one is a great read. Dan Starkey is asked to record the events occuring on a remote island off the Northern Irish coast on which the new Messiah, a little girl, has been born. Starkey witnesses how the population of the island reacts both to the little girl and to outsiders on the island