Patrick Boyle uses Irish speech for exactitude, but English for effect—and all too often weakens the effect by exaggeration. 'Tap-tap-tap. Loud. Urgent. Imperative'—no one even knocks on a door without taking risks with his blood pressure. Pillows are sweat-sodden, eyeballs bulge. But this isn't only Mr Boyle's manner, it's a large part of his subject. The stories in his recent At Night All Cats Are Grey are about suddent death, savage animals, a collapse of human relations that ends in a cataleptic trance—though they calm down and have good moments when people talk their natural language. His novel Like Any Other Man … describes the agony of a man for whom physical force is the only measure. The title seems inappropriate; and since the hero is a bank manager he's surely in the wrong job At all events, Simpson begins by seeing spots before his eyes...