The Traveller and Other Stories by Stuart Neville

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I read the first of Stuart Neville's  Belfast novels, The Ghosts of Belfast (The Twelve in the UK) in 2016 and was stunned at how good it was. No doubt it still is. It was also Neville's first novel. I immediately read book 2, Collusion, but didn't keep up with the author after that, something for which I have no logical explanation. Jump ahead to 2021 and I see a mention of The Traveller in a 2020 Crime column of the NY Times Books section and I thought we should get reacquainted. 

This collection of twelve short stories and one novella show that Neville is as skilled with short form fiction as he is writing novels. There aren't any happy stories here and I'd say they run from light gray to deepest black in the mood they instill.

The book has two parts. Part I is called New Monsters. The first story, "Coming in on Time" sets the tone with a young boy watching for the ferry and it pretty much leaves the reader gutted. Following that story is the mildest of the seven in part one, "The Green Lady" which is a reworking of an Irish ghost legend. Story three, "Echo", has a young boy in a house that is trying to cope with a tragedy.I'm overusing this word but it is another that leaves the reader gutted. The other four are dark crime stories, practically noir.

Part II is called Old Friends and is a return to Northern Ireland during and after The Troubles which is when The Ghosts of Belfast and Collusion are set. Several of the stories and the novella feature paramilitary killer, Gerry Fegan who we first meet in The Ghosts of Belfast. In fact, the story "Followers" was expanded into The Ghosts of Belfast. Fegan is haunted by people he killed. The novella, The Traveller, is particularly important for wrapping up some loose ends. The stories can be read as stand-alone but if you've read books one and two of the Belfast novels you'll recognize names and events. What these stories have done is to inspire me to go back and reread the first two books of the Belfast novels. There are six of these but I've only read the first two. I need to fix that. Okay, I'm going to go ahead and say it; if you haven't already done so, go read The Ghosts of Belfast and Collusion. If you read them first, you'll see where the stories fit in. If you read these stories first, then the novels will explain the context. Either way, you won't regret it.

Keywords: Northern Ireland, The Troubles, killers, crime fiction, noir, short stories