Former Irish Times journalist launches novel

Joe Joyce, whose new novel was launched in Dublin last night, recalled that Charles Haughey had branded him a fiction writer when he was writing about Haughey's life and times in The Boss.

Joyce said Haughey was asked about The Boss, the political bestseller he co-authored with Peter Murtagh, during a radio programme."He said 'it's a work of fiction'. So actually I haven't moved that far."

The novel, Echoland, was launched by former Irish Times editor Conor Brady.

Set in Dublin during the second World War, it follows Paul Duggan, a young Irish lieutenant drafted into military intelligence where he is tasked with spying on a suspected German agent.

Before long, however, he is distracted when a politician asks him to try and find his daughter who has gone missing, possibly kidnapped.

Mr Brady, launching the book at the Hodges Figgis bookshop, described Joyce as one of Ireland’s finest investigative journalists who had successfully turned his pen to fiction.

Noting his captivating portrait of Dublin in a bygone era, Brady said it was “a remarkable evolution in Joe’s writing career . . . the blossoming of a literary talent which I have no doubt will go a lot further”.

Joyce has also written a successful play, The Tower.