GR Online MARIA (MJ) HYLAND'S extraordinary second novel, Carry Me Down, was published in 2006, two years after her debut, How the Light Gets In (Canongate, 2004). The critical reception for Carry Me Down was almost universally positive, and the novel...

FictionMR F WAS short and squat, well dressed, with the sort of small, dry hands you might expect of a bureaucrat. I was horrified to observe a tiny spot of tomato sauce on his striped tie. At least I...

FictionI DON'T EVEN really know where I first met Eli. She was just one of those people I saw at parties and gigs and bars. I liked her and I didn't care that she was a junkie; most people...

FictionIT'S TRUE I wanted him dead and would gladly have done it myself. I wonder about the days before fingerprinting, before CCTV, forensic analysis and Google Earth: how easy it would have been to do away with someone. It's...

FictionDRUG ADDICTION IS 98 per cent hunger, 2 per cent feast; you get accustomed to bad news. But I had no inkling when I picked up the phone on that grim afternoon that what Anna told me would propel...