Crime: Kerrigan's grapple with the dark subtext of prosperity establishes him as a leading writer.
Crime fiction always flourishes at a time of economic plenty. There is a "blinding glimpse of the obvious" reason why: new-found affluence affects the body politic in all sorts of intriguing ways. For all its evident financial benefits - and the sense of communal confidence it creates - boom times also point up the ever-widening gap between those who are reaping rewards from this economic whirlwind and those who exist on the margins of society.
More tellingly, as the whiff of big bucks tends to bring out the stupid side in most of us (just spend any time in a Vegas casino to get my point), it's only logical that a nouveau riche vanguard can also bring out the very worst in many people. And since bad behaviour - especially that which is motivated by cupidity - is the very stuff of all crime writing, it's not at all surprising that a brilliant novel such as Gene Kerrigan's The Midnight Choir should emerge from Ireland's economic big bang.
Granted, Kerrigan's isn't the first novel to grapple with prosperity's dark subtext in contemporary Ireland. Declan Hughes's wonderful The Wrong Kind of Blood (for which I provided a jacket blurb - to get that "full disclosure" chore out of the way) and Kerrigan's own previous book, Little Criminals, both caught - in stylistically and thematically different ways - the meretricious dance of a society on the make.
And like Hughes, Kerrigan comes to the literary table armed with two formidable weapons: a first-rate grasp of narrative structure, and a ruthless eye for the social nuances and the psychological complexities of individuals who don't exactly exude grace under pressure.
Indeed, one of the many pleasures of this taut, superbly thought-out novel is watching Kerrigan construct a jigsaw-like plot out of several seemingly disparate characters. There's Dixie Peyton - a woman who could be charitably described as an ongoing tragedy, and will do anything to retrieve the child that the social services have taken away from her.
There's Lar Mackendrick - new convert to the religion of the pumped pectoral and a purveyor of much criminal malfeasance. There's Joshua Boyle - a fine family man who also happens to specialise in armed robbery. There's Max Hapgood Junior - a very-well heeled Trinity College student who is about to be charged with sexual assault, and whose father (a big deal in public relations) is far too well connected to allow such a charge to stick.
And there is Det Insp Harry Synnott - a cop who knows, metaphorically speaking, where all the skeletons are buried, and has less-than-collegial relations with most of his fellow police officers, having previously committed that most heinous of law enforcement sins: turning against one's own.
I'm deliberately leaving out several other key players in this bracingly complex novel, as part of the pleasure of reading The Midnight Choir is watching how Kerrigan manages to thread these dissimilar stories together and turn them into a dark moral tale that (happily) doesn't trumpet itself as a dark moral tale.
Indeed, Kerrigan plays it canny when it comes to avoiding ethical posturing or making the usual banal observations about Parvenu Ireland. Rather, the novel shrewdly exploits the ambiguities inherent in all situations where money and power criss-cross, and springs an unsettling denouement that resonates.
Kerrigan has always been one of this country's leading journalists. With this novel, he becomes one of its leading writers. The Midnight Choir is both riveting and disquieting; a novel which reminds you that prosperity may mean many things . . . but it is rarely an ennobling experience.
Douglas Kennedy's novel State of the Union has just been published in paperback by Arrow. His next novel, Temptation, will be published in October by Hutchinson
The Midnight Choir By Gene Kerrigan Harvill Secker, 342pp. £11.99