Trust Her, a new novel by Flynn Berry set in Ireland, reads like a master class in the art of thriller writing. Tessa, a one-time informer on the IRA who featured in Berry’s previous novel, Northern Spy, is tasked with turning her former MI5 handler against the security service. If she doesn’t do this successfully, her family will be killed. Because Tessa is a mother, her concern for her young son drives the psychological tension. Berry’s gorgeous writing energizes the prose: “This tide is being dragged by the moon, and when I let a wave lift me, I’m actually letting the moon lift me, from far in space, feeling its power across all those thousands of miles.”
The atmosphere Berry creates is immersive. She pays attention to the details, to the moods, to the weather, and brings it all together to cast a spell over the reader: “Across the pub, drizzle fogs the windows, blurring the view of the road. Rain is falling on the pub and the graves in Glasnevin. Under my boots, the floor feels crooked.” Of the sea, Berry writes: “The wall of dawn fog over the sea is sun-shot and golden, glowing. It looks like a portal, like you could swim under it into another world. I keep thinking I see sailboats ghosting through it.”
And of Tessa’s mother, Berry writes: “She has a glamour, like her sisters, like other women from west Belfast, that has nothing to do with clothes or money. They know how to dance, how to tell a story, how to have you wheezing with laughter. You want to be near them.”
Often, colonial struggles in literature are hard to understand, either described confusingly or merely hinted at. Through strong storytelling, Berry helps readers understand the difficult political situation in Northern Ireland and what happens in communities involved with the IRA. It doesn’t take long before you feel like you know the characters. You’ll want to be near them.
Trust Her comes out June 25th but you can pre-order it now. Berry is a local author, so look out for readings and signings in the area.
Rena J. Mosteirin wrote Experiment 116 (Counterpath press, 2021), Half-Fabulous Whales (Little Dipper, 2019) and Nick Trail’s Thumb (Kore Press, 2008). She is the co-author of Moonbit (punctum books, 2019) an academic and poetic exploration of the Apollo 11 guidance computer code. Mosteirin is an editor at Bloodroot Literary Magazine, teaches creative writing workshops at Dartmouth College and owns Left Bank Books, a used bookstore in Hanover, New Hampshire.