Two killers are on the loose in 1980s Antrim – and they’re 11-year-olds. Pearse Furlong and May-Belle Mulholland find common ground in their shared backgrounds: one has a violent father, the other an abusive mother. Together they cut a foul-mouthed swathe of destruction through a town already scarred by the Troubles.
Pearse tells May-Belle that Ireland’s history is “blood everywhere . . . and no one is ever punished”, and it is the deaths of his mother and grandmother in a car bomb meant for Pearse’s father that will drive the two young killers to commit their final, most terrible act.
Mackay makes clear his view that violence begets violence and this moral lesson is delivered with a visceral, often shocking prose that cuts to the quick but can make for uncomfortable reading.
“What kind of parents raised you?”, a judge shouts at Pearse and May-Belle. For Mackay, they are innocents whose actions are the inevitable consequence of a society which has become inured to conflict.
