Logic and Madness

Dublin, 1982. Malcolm Macarthur, 37, landed gentry, suave, erudite, impeccably well connected, has been living off a large inheritance since his 20s, but money doesn’t hang around long with those who don’t cling on. At the risk of going bust, Macarthur sets out to try to solve his problem. He decides to rob a bank.

His plan is absurdly ill-conceived, and every part goes horribly, brutally wrong. Two young people are left dead, their killer on the run. When found by police, Macarthur is at the home of his friend Patrick Connolly, in the same apartment complex where a three-year-old Mark O’Connell’s grandparents live. The flame of a writer’s fascination with a brutal killer is lit; the product, O’Connell’s new book A Thread of Violence.