Divorcing Jack: A Dan Starkey Mystery (Dan Starkey Mysteries)

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An insider's view into the raging political scene of Northern Ireland in the mid 90s and the warped marriage of a co-dependent couple are tightly conveyed. Lee is obviously a layered hero who I felt deserved much more attention and a more satisfying ending. While he does overindulge Starkey's sexual magnetism and the female characters could have had a lot more agency, Bateman does a stand-up job of keeping this farcical 'wrong man' story constantly engaging and just the right kind of cheeky. The film's messages about the horrors and idiocy of war and particularly the Irish civil war are familiar and would have been corny in a straight drama, but as in Catch-22 and other classic black comedies, the absurd humor of the film makes it powerful. Most of those, it must be said, feature Griffiths (Muriel's hellraising mate in Muriel's Wedding whose role seems largely superfluous) and the ending asks us to take everything a lot more seriously than the film has taken itself.

Mám pocit, že kdybyste irským autorům řekli, že hrdinové nemusí být neschopné svině, kteří, pokud zasáhnou do děje, tak všechno jen zhorší, a že příběhy mohou končit i optimisticky, tak by na vás pět minut vyděšeně zírali, pak si uplivli a praštili vás lahví.

Journalist Dan Starkey commences an ill thought out affair with Margaret; a woman he meets on one of his solo binges in the Belfast bars. In 1990 he received a Journalist’s Fellowship to Oxford University for his reports from Uganda, and he has received a Northern Ireland Press Award for his weekly satirical column.

Black romantic comedy set around the troubled "peace process" and its effect on a cynical Belfast hack. An odd one, definitely, and although I might be tempted to try the next in the series, I don't think I'll be listening to it anytime soon.

I do like how Bateman integrates the then current political situation and local color into the fictional story and provides good details on the political and socioeconomic situations at the time. As Dan tries to get to grips with what has become of his life, Margaret is murdered whilst he has nipped out for pizza and he becomes the focus of a man hunt, but what do Margaret's last words mean. Caffrey’s direction extracts the most of this material, though a reprise of significant images from the film at the end (presumably designed as an aid to slower members of the audience) is a mistake. A favourite of mine from the late 90s when I used to devour the excellent pulp fiction of Northern Irish novelist Colin Bateman, the source of this underrated movie.

First line: I was upstairs with a girl I shouldn't have been upstairs with when my wife whispered in my ear, "you have 24 hours to move out". But this tragic incident is glossed over and not referred to again, which is typical of the film’s cold-blooded attitude toward death. I don't want to give it away but it has a wonderful ending, in an awful kind of way, that took me totally my surprise. He has some moral core – he can’t kill a gangster in cold blood when given the chance – but it’s wafer thin. has struck gold the first time out with his mordant, loquacious hero and his ruined landscape", stating in conclusion that "the promised sequel can't arrive too soon".A bold attempt at a comedy-thriller set in the near future in Belfast, this first feature from David Caffrey shows plenty of promise and chutzpah, but veers wildly in tone from sweet romantic comedy to bloody thriller and back again. Northern Irish columnist Dan Starkey and American journalist Charles Parker are sent out to cover the upcoming elections, in which the charismatic, former victim of the war, Michael Brinn seems the obvious winner, campaigning on a platform of disarmament and peace between the warring factions in Northern Ireland. All for a reader to discover as you spend some time with Dan Starkey, a newspaper columnist in blood soaked Belfast who could surely also make a living doing stand-up comedy. McKinty also has a mineshaft seam of black humour, and his character Sean Duffy drinks more than seems humanly possible at times, but the Duffy novels have greater depth and reality.

Colin Bateman's Belfast-set thriller is a roller-coaster ride of a book that will keep you chuckling and horrified in equal measure from start to finish. The main protagonist, Dan Starkey, is a decidedly beta male (or maybe even omega of there is such a thing).

Divorcing Jack is highly recommended; it's neither a romantic comedy nor a straight thriller, but it's a good and powerful film to enjoy and to think about. A autor je podobně nelítostný jako IRA, takže jsem fakt občas zíral a říkal si „tohle má být komediální knížka, plná hlášek… tohle přece nemůže udělat? The one clue that could lead Starkey to the real killer slips through his fingers like a greased eel. On wife Patricia: "She had done more damage to my nose in three years of marriage than twenty years of amateur football.