The Disenchanted Widow

It€s 1981 and Belfast is burning. So, too, is freshly widowed Bessie Halstone: she burns with a desire to break with her troubled past. With her feckless husband gone, she leaves home hurriedly with her naughty nine-year-old son, Herkie, and not much else. The Dentist, an IRA enforcer, is on her tail. He€s convinced that Bessie, with her €œyella hair all puffed up like Merlin Monroe€s,€ has absconded with the takings from a bank heist.

But car trouble strands mother and son in Tailorstown, a sleepy Ulster village. Bessie finds temporary work as housekeeper for the handsome and mysterious parish priest.

In the meantime, Lorcan Strong, an artist and a native of the village, is summoned home. He€s been shanghaied into forging paintings for the IRA. It€s work he cannot refuse; his mother and their business are under threat.

Yet things are not what they seem in quirky Tailorstown. There is a €œsleeper€ in the village. But who? Bizarrely, it is young Herkie, due to his childish curiosity, who unravels the mystery and saves the day.