The Devil I Know

**SOLDIER SAILOR - THE NEW NOVEL BY CLAIRE KILROY - IS AVAILABLE NOW**

'Smart, funny and stylish.' JOHN BANVILLE
'Kilroy's darkly comic, clever book keeps the reader engrossed and aghast.' Independent

There was a crooked man and he walked a crooked mile
He made a crooked deal and he blew a crooked pile
He dug a crooked hole
And he sank the crooked isle
And they all went to hell in a stew of crooked bile.

The Devil I Know is a thrilling novel of greed and hubris, set against the backdrop of a brewing international debt crisis. Told by Tristram, in the form of a mysterious testimony, it recounts his return home after a self-imposed exile only to find himself trapped as a middle man played on both sides - by a grotesque builder he''s known since childhood on the one hand, and a shadowy businessman he''s never met on the other. Caught between them, as an overblown property development begins in his home town of Howth, it follows Tristram''s dawning realisation that all is not well.

From a writer unafraid to take risks, The Devil I Know is a bold, brilliant and disturbing piece of storytelling.

PRAISE FOR SOLDIER SAILOR:

''Intense, furious, moving and often extremely funny.'' DAVID NICHOLLS
'Astonishing.' Observer
'So powerful.' MONICA ALI
'Exceptionally good [it] sizzles and crackles with life.' The Times
'A huge, small book.' ANNE ENRIGHT
'I lived and breathed beside her narrator. A furious, muffled shout of a book.' DAISY JOHNSON