The Dead House

Starred review from March 5, 2018
An unspecified something that has just occurred prompts retired artists’ agent Michael Simmons, the English narrator of Irish author O’Callaghan’s chilling, beautifully written first novel, to tell a story he has tried to forget. Flash back nine years to a housewarming party hosted by painter Maggie Turner, a client of Michael’s, who has recently bought and fixed up, with his financial assistance, a rundown cottage on the west coast of Ireland. Maggie has invited Michael and two other friends to visit for several days. One evening at the beach, Michael spots a “flicker of whiteness” that he thinks might be a woman, an image that takes on sinister overtones after he learns of a grim bit of local history. O’Callaghan combines his gift at describing settings (“the casual filthy-white scatter of sheep flecking the distance, the tumbling ground a desperation of greenery, thick as pond-scum in parts”) with subtle suggestions that something unnatural is going on. Fans of psychological thrillers with a ghostly undercurrent will be richly rewarded. Agent: Svetlana Pironko, Author Rights Agency (Ireland).