Dark Secrets, A Romantic Tangle, and Regrets Haunt a Small Village

Duneen is a quiet village, but beneath the surface resentment, fear, and sorrow flourish. Sergeant PJ Collins is the guard in the village. He’s overweight, clumsy, and afraid that he will never be a real policeman capable of solving big crimes. His chance comes with old bones are discovered in the field of one of the farms.

The villagers are sure the bones belong to Tommy Burke. He owned the farm and was engaged to be married to Brid. However, another women, Evelyn Ross, one of the tragic Ross sisters, was in love with him. Neither of the women have gotten over the fact that he just disappeared.

Detective Superintendent Linus Dunne from Cork is assigned to the case. PJ resents being given the lesser role. This is his community. He continues the investigation even though Dunne doesn’t think much will come of it. However, it’s PJ investigation that brings the case to a head exposing resentments and secrets going back twenty-five years.

The is not a fast paced thriller. The book starts slowly with history of the village and the families living there who will play a role in the drama. I found it interesting at first, but I thought it went on too long.

The mystery is not hard to unravel. However, the main point of the book is the development of the characters. PJ, Evelyn, and Brid all have to face their demons as the events from the past are revealed.
The description of the village draws you into the world of secrets and regrets. The close-minded, judgmental villagers are well portrayed. It’s the way the scene is woven into the action that makes this novel interesting.

If you enjoy a mystery with historical background and good character development, you may enjoy this book.

I received this book from Net Galley for this review.

Reading this, you wouldn't know that Graham Norton is the author...and I say that in the best kind of way. It's a lovely mix between a cozy mystery vibe and your traditional detective novel. The gossipy Irish town and dark secrets play off each other to make an utterly charming page-turner.

I was intrigued to read this book by Graham Norton, the description confirmed it would probably be one of the type of books I like to read, a murder mystery in a village setting. I wasn't sure what to expect from Graham as an author of fiction, so was looking forward to reading it. It doesn't disappoint.
The novel is set in Ireland, in a village called Duneen where a body believed to be that of a man called Tommy Burke, who has been missing for several years, is found on a farm near the village. The village Garda known as P J is thrown into an investigation which is beyond his experience of dealing with the petty crime that is the usual mainstay of his job.
We are then introduced to various suspects/ characters from the village, each with their own back story and secrets which affect the investigation and it's outcome, their insecurities, character flaws and eccentricities are all very well drawn, and the story moves along at a good place. Added into the mix is a policeman from outside the village brought in to investigate the mystery surrounding the body, the initial mistrust and competitiveness between him and P J is a good added touch.
I enjoyed reading about how the relationships between the characters developed and also how their interactions and private thoughts shed light on past and present situations. I particularly enjoyed Bobby the dog who is introduced later in the book, and as a dog owner can appreciate the characterisation of his owner being frustrated at him taking off during a walk and coming back in a filthy state! Everything in tied up well and no loose ends left.
Overall a quirky, refreshing novel which is a new take on the usual murder mystery.
Thanks to Netgalley and Atria Books for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I really enjoyed this. It reads a like a cozy mystery. The setting is a charming village, the mystery is an old disappearance of someone you never meet rather than a gruesome, graphic murder. What this book adds is interesting, well drawn characters who you want to know more about, like how they were affected by long ago events. There is also a sort of love story. I'm hoping it will be the first of a series.

TV host Graham Norton makes a very creditable fist of his first novel, a bucolic mystery set in the tiny Irish town of Duneen. His hero PJ is an overweight, hopeless member of the Guardia who is the sole cop in the town. When some human bones are found on a nearby building site, PJ is very quickly in over his head, both with his dearth of policing skills and with the long-buried village animosities the find also unearths.

PJ's investigation sees him bouncing between the forbidding trio of Ross spinsters and the town drunk Brid Riordan, to untangle a long-past love triangle with a farm boy, and discern its bearing on the case. There are a couple of clever twists to the plot, but it is a bit Midsomer-y. PJ's success with the ladies is also a little bit hard to credit.

PJ reminded me a bit of Brendan Gleeson's character in the film <i>The Guard</i>, but that's no bad thing. He's an amiable character with enough rough edges to sustain interest should Norton elect to do a sequel.

The small village of Duneen in Co. Cork is buzzing - bones have been found on a building site. It's the most excitement that local Garda Sergeant PJ Collins has had in years, his days usually filled with parking fines and being fed by his housekeeper. As the investigation progresses, PJ begins to discover things about the residents of Duneen - most of which they would rather remain buried.

Graham Norton is a good writer, but for some reason this dragged for me, especially in Part One. It's a nice read, nothing groundbreaking, nothing majorly shocking, just a nice read about the discovery of a body in a sleepy village. I also kept reading it in Graham's voice, which was odd during certain parts.

Part Two is where it picked up for me - I really felt for Lizzie. Up to that point I hadn't really forged an attachment to any character, but I was rooting for her and I felt her story and character were much more well developed than, say, The Ross Sisters (who I kept mixing up).

I wasn't mad about the behaviour of PJ in certain parts, I didn't find it believable, but I liked how the story was wrapped up even if it were a little rushed and predictable. I'd recommend this if you'd like cozy mysteries.

I had no doubts that I was going to like this book, ever since I read that Graham Norton had written one I was on board! "Holding" is a thrilling and somehow bittersweet story about a little town in Ireland and a cold case about the murder of Tommy Burke, a former citizen everyone thought had simply left years before. The story though is much more than a mystery, the real protagonists are the stories and struggles of all the main characters and how they deal with the uncovering of this murder and with their private lives. You feel like you care about them and you want the best for them. I did really like this book and am deeply sad it has come to an end.

I've been a fan of Graham Norton as a television personality ever since I first saw his delightfully frenetic performances on "Father Ted" back in the '90s, so naturally I had to read this book when I found out about it. "Holding" is equally as delightful as Norton's tv appearances, but different. Instead of urbanity, sly wit, and over-the-top nuttiness, the novel possesses a warmly sympathetic portrayal of rural Ireland. While there's plenty of potential targets for mockery here, and more than a few gently humorous moments, as well as the kind of plot twists you'd expect from a mystery novel, at its heart this is compassionate story of misfits--plump, shy policemen, middle-aged spinsters, unhappy housewives--in a small village where murder is the best entertainment everyone has had all year, maybe all decade.

P.J., the local Garda sergeant, has always been on the heavy side, and now, in his fifties, he is heavy enough that he breaks into a sweat "walking up to communion," as we're informed in the opening paragraph. Despite his unprepossessing appearance, he's neither stupid nor lazy, just preternaturally shy, especially around women. He'd like to lose weight but, in one of those little moments of insight that grace the book, everyone keeps feeding him indulgently, and what is he supposed to do? Offend them by turning down their offerings? The discovery of human remains on a building site breaks him out of his rut and sends him digging--sometimes literally--into the past, until the whole sorry story of old heartbreak has been unearthed.

Although there's plenty of human frailty here, it's dealt with kindly, with little of the grit of the more hardboiled type of mystery/thriller you get from Norton's fellow Irish writers Stuart Neville or Ken Bruen. "Holding" is more like a cozy mystery, but it's less frilly than that--while readers of cozy mysteries, especially the sort set in rural Ireland, are likely to enjoy it, this book has more depth than your standard paint-by-numbers mystery. The characters all seem like real, relatable people, flaws and all, and the prose style is clean, graceful, and touched with just enough melodic Irish wit to make it charming without being cloying. The book ends with the main mystery resolved, but the main characters' relationships still in a state of flux, hinting at the possibility, perhaps, of a sequel or a series. Short and sweet, this is a lovely little read and a welcome addition to the Irish mystery genre.

My thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing a review copy of this book. All opinions are my own.

Holding by Graham Norton
Who knew? Who knew Graham Norton could lock himself in a room and emerge with this really good novel? We all love his television show so I was really excited to receive an advance copy of his first novel, and truth be told, I expected a lot of laughs. It turns out this isn’t a Graham Norton comedy, this turns out to be a real story. A good story.
Set in the tiny Irish village of Duneen (I do hope when this is a selling point for a book that I really will be transported into one of the homes and become a part of the village) we find everyone in everyone’s lives. I suppose you can’t help it when you all live together. And I suppose you think, when you all live together in a small place that you already know everything there is to know about each other. Well, surprise!
The most excitement Duneen has seen in decades is the discovery of a skeleton at a construction site. The speculation is intense about whose bones these belong to until the final decision is made that they belong to Tommy Burke. Tommy, it turns out, was the love interest or crush of two young women in the village 25 years before and suddenly, Tommy just disappears. It was said he was seen getting on a bus and leaving with no explanations.
This is the first case of any consequence for sergeant PJ Collins in his role as resident sergeant he already knows the stories of the lives of the villagers, or so he thinks, so he feels he is the best equipped to handling the investigation.
But we don’t all know what we think we know, do we?

I wasn't really sure what to expect going in to this book and I have to say that I was pretty bored right from the start. PJ wasn't a character I connected with and the focus on his weight seemed weird and unnecessary. There were so many descriptions of things that seemed pointless to forwarding the plot. As far as the whodunit, I didn't feel that there was much complexity to figuring it out as I fairly easily figured out the who and why early on. For a detective, PJ seemed pretty inept and bumbling and I found myself skimming for about 25% to the end. Not a good sign and this wasn't a story I enjoyed

<i>Holding</i> didn't hold my attention for the most part, though as the resolution was approaching it got fairly exciting.

For the most part it focuses on the characters, particularly the Sergeant and the struggle with his excessive weight. The quite accurate accounts of all sorts of situations overweight people have to deal with that few stop to consider was very real.

As the narrative reached its climax, it was good to see some characters' growth and others' inevitable downfall, not to mention what the author did with a potential love triangle.

But the world building was so shallow; I don't even understand why the only officer there was Collins, there didn't even seem to be someone to cover for him if he was sick or something, or to take the calls, even.
Speaking of which, I didn't get why he had to leave the scene to make a call from the barracks, for instance. What about cell phones?? It was like Duneen was stuck in the past and in that sense I found the cover quite misleading, might I add.

Also, as a mystery, to me, the book ultimately it failed to deliver. Maybe I am too used to huge twists and more complex characters. The simplicity of it all was quite refreshing, so that was nice. I enjoyed it but was never really clinging to the pages wanting to know what happened next. It was more like ok you are all very nice characters but what the heck happened here?

The book felt like a story of a few key characters in a quiet town where everyone seems to know everyone and the mystery was something on the sideline. I would have appreciated a few clues that got the gears running in my brain.

Overall an okay book that I mildly enjoyed with a solid cast of characters that I am left rooting for.

<i>Disclaimer: I would like to thank the publisher and Netgalley for providing me a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.</i>

This was a delightful summer read. We are transported to a tiny one-policeman village in Ireland where nothing ever happens, and then a construction project turns up human remains and a lot of long-buried secrets as well. I enjoyed the characters, the tightly-constructed plot, and the local color of the setting. This is one of those classic mysteries which, since it is set in a village, is going to have a limited number of characters/suspects, and the reader will enjoy figuring it out.

I may have expected the book to be more like Norton's tv personality, snarky and wickedly funny, but this book is sincere and sweet--even though there is sex and language. The protagonist is a middle-aged, overweight police guard who is just doing his best. By the end of the book, he has solved the crime and upped his game. I hope Mr. Norton will decide to keep going with further tales of Sgt. PJ Collins and the charming village of Deneen, or wherever he is sent next.

Received an advanced copy in exchange for a fair review.
This book was lovely. I came for the name recognition of the author, out of curiosity to see if he could write fiction, and came away thoroughly delighted.
"Holding" is the story of a small town and *spoiler alert* its residents have secrets. Sergeant PJ Collins has never had to deal with anything more serious than a traffic ticket or the occasional belligerent drunk, then contractors at a building site find a body. As PJ investigates, which the help of big city cops he's desperate to impress so they don't think he's a small-town rube, there are just more questions even as everyone is pretty sure they know who the body is - or do they? Just when the trail goes cold and you find yourself wondering how the heck the story can keep going, it does in the most unexpected way.
Norton does such a great job of laying down twists that I honestly didn't see coming. I've read thrillers recently where the twist felt forced or unearned but Norton does it all very intentionally yet naturally. You both know something is important in context but also recognize why the character with their own issues wouldn't recognize its significance. No one is stupid here. Norton also crafts a wonderful town with its odd characters and local flavor. People are nosy - some well-meaning and some not - and loyal. They're curious and anxious to help in some ways but reluctant to tell an outsider anyone's business in others. All of the little dramas that occur alongside the murder mystery are realistic and get resolved.
The writing is also superb. Norton can turn a phrase and find a way to encapsulate a feeling I've had but never seen in words before. It's stunning, the amount of highlights I made as things resonated. I wouldn't be mad if we followed the good Sergeant in future adventures. Sign me up.

Graham Norton is a well known broadcaster in the United Kingdom. Holding is his debut novel.

This is a phenomenal first novel. You would never know from the pacing and the detailed characters that this is the first go around for Mr Norton.

Set in Ireland, a young man is in love with one girl, but asks another to marry him. When the girls have a public confrontation the young man disappears. There are reports that he hopped on a bus and headed to Cork, but that goes against his careful character. Years later, with both girls living less than satisfactory lives, a body is discovered.

Mr Norton describes his characters so thoroughly that you can actually picture them. It is a delightful skill that permeates this book.

If you are looking for a good Irish police procedural mixed with a good mystery, then this book is a definite yes.

If you've watched the Graham Norton show on BBC (and now on Youtube), then you know that he is a natural story teller, and likely prone to making up some great dialogue, so it comes as NO surprise that he has written a quite readable novel, full of quirky but unforgettable characters! Norton actually does a very fine job in crafting a mystery within a mystery, set in a small Irish village, where secrets are always deeply buried. Til they come out at the construction site! LOL. The book is a great Summer read (it comes out August 1st) , thanks to it's page turning plot, characters that jump off the page, and a story that feels like it came from a veteran novelist! In fact, I wouldn't mind reading a new book featuring PJ Collins, and his next adventure! So if you're looking for something new and different, be sure to check this one out!

Upon finishing Holding by Graham Norton. I seriously said aloud: how delightful was that! P.J. Collins is an overweight lonely policeman in a small Irish town where life goes on, and on, until bones are accidentally unearthed and everything changes. Having never had to deal with much more than traffic, P.J. Collins finds investigating just may be something he's rather good at. All sorts of lovely details emerge and by the end of the book we watch as he and the big city detective forge a Casablanca Rick and Captain Renault friendship that promises sequels - at least I very much hope so.

This cozy mystery by Graham Norton is a solid, funny mystery set in Ireland. Norton is witty (naturally) and captures the essence of the small Irish setting. A lovely way to spend a day reading.

Excellent writing, well developed characters and great cold-case murder mystery. It felt like watching one of my favorite British detective dramas. Looking forward to any future adventures of P. J. Collins!

Easily one of the best reads of the year so far, I think of this mystery as a cozy in the sense that it is about the characters far more than the puzzle, and there are more scenes of character interaction that have nothing to do with the mystery, and very few talking heads discussing clues and forensics.

The omniscient narrator once in a while shifts abruptly from POV to POV, but doesn't lost the reader as we get to know the principle people in the tiny Irish town of Duneen. Central is Sergeant PJ Collins, a fat man who never had much social skill. Being the only "gardia" of the tiny town has sufficed, but he's secretly hoped for the challenge and bustle of a case. When builders find the remains of a man, it looks like he's going to get his chance.

Norton's characters are so well-realized, the narrative voice gently sympathetic while illustrating fierce loneliness and sometimes suppressed anger. The village is beautifully evoked, and--though I make no pretence at knowing whether the dialogue is authentic for the locale or not--I could hear the Irish cadences in the speech patterns.

I figured out the probably murderer fairly early on, but that was all right. I suspect the reader is meant to, or that it doesn't matter if you do or not, as it's the gradual uncovering of the past as characters' lives are impacted in the present that is the real focus.

I especially loved Norton's handling of Collins's situation, and through him, the delicate exploration of human dignity, of human connection, and of the ephemerals of emotions and how they add up over the years, into hard-won wisdom in one person, and burning anger in another. A riveting climax unfolded to a lovely, lovely ending.