The last of a manufacturing dynasty in a dying industrial town, Bill lives alone in the family mansion and works for the 'Truth', the moribund local paper. He yearns to write the long philosophical think pieces about the American dream gone sour, not the flaccid write-ups of homebake contests and high-school sports demanded by his editor.

Then old man Lawton goes missing, and suspicion fixes on his son Ronny, bad boy of the area. Paradoxically, the spectre of violent death breathes new life into the town, with network attention and national scoops for the newspaper. For Bill, a deeper and more disturbing involvement with the Lawtons themselves ensues. The Lawton murder and the obsessions it awakes in the town come to symbolise the mood of a nation on the edge.

In this piercing novel, the Ireland-born author turns his uncompromising vision to 1980s small-town America. Compulsively readable, this novel startles both with its insights and with the author's characteristically incisive writing.

The novel was short-listed for Britain's most prestigious literary prize, the Booker Award, in 2000.