IN the light of Brexit and the talk of soft and hard borders, this is a topical novel as it is set on the blackthorn-hedged borders of Northern Ireland and the Republic.

In Flanders during the First World War, David Verbocht, a young Belgian schoolteacher, stands before a firing squad, sentenced to death as a deserter. 

THE setting is Victorian Dublin, as newly promoted detective inspector, Joe Swallow investigates an outbreak of sexual assaults on women. 

The novel follows a dual pattern. Lenny Peleg, a veteran of the Yom Kippur War and erstwhile businessman, goes missing in South America. Dori his son, a history teacher, leaves his wife and young son in Israel to go in search of him.