Brief TV appearance boosts sales of Irish novel

A surreal Irish novel which fleetingly appeared in an episode of hit drama 'Lost' has seen an upsurge in sales.

'The Third Policeman' was published in 1967, a year after the author Flann O'Brien died.

More than 15,000 copies were sold in the three weeks following the Lost episode airing in the US - equalling sales of the previous six years.

The book featured for just a second in an episode of the second series of 'Lost', which has just been screened in Ireland and is still showing in the US but has yet to be shown in the UK.

'Lost' scriptwriter Craig Wright said the book was chosen "very specifically for a reason".

The Third Policeman is a surreal, comic novel which details a murder mystery.

Publishers, Harper Collins, describe the book, which was originally rejected by publishers for being too fantastical, as "the story of a tender, brief, unrequited love affair between a man and his bicycle and a chilling fable of unending guilt".