<p><em>Cycle of Violence</em>, written with appealing verve and Colin Bateman’s unique blend of sinister violence and sidesplitting dialogue, is a thrill ride through Belfast’s most terrifying neighborhood with Miller, Ulster’s wisecracking, bicycling journalist, and his “cycle of violence.”</p><p>Miller’s ever-so-smart-aleck mouth has earned him a disciplinary transfer from his downtown Belfast beat to Crossmaheart, a beleaguered and depressed outpost where the preferred response to murder is a hilarious one-liner. Miller is replacing a reporter who has disappeared—to no one’s great surprise in this post-terrorist ghetto full of leftover guns, plentiful whiskey, and a secret more sordid than the locals’ résumés of political “activism.”</p><p>Crossmaheart is a notoriously famous place in which to ask questions, and Miller is determined to forgo his professional curiosity, to compromise his journalist’s integrity in the interest of staying alive. He is particularly intent on keeping himself clear of whatever involvements cause the job opening at the <em>Crossmaheart Chronicle</em> in the first place. But when he falls for his predecessor’s troubled girlfriend, Marie—a former Catholic schoolgirl to complement Miller’s own Protestant heritage—his plan begins to fall apart.</p><p>Darkly funny, romantic, disturbing, and suspenseful, <em>Cycle of Violence</em> confirms Bateman’s reputation as one of the best Irish writers of his generation.</p>