Brouhaha by Ardal O’Hanlon review – what’s the story?

Ardal O'Hanlon: ‘a neat phrase and amusing dialogue’. Photograph: Mark Nixon

The actor and comedian Ardal O’Hanlon’s first novel, 1998’s The Talk of the Town, hinted at the emergence of a distinctive literary talent, equal parts Flann O’Brien and Irvine Welsh. His follow-up has taken nearly a quarter of a century to appear, and unfortunately the boldness of his original debut has been replaced by a jarring mixture of whimsy and brutality. No doubt O’Hanlon’s publisher would like it to be compared to Paul Murray and Colin Bateman, but Brouhaha would probably never have been published were it not for O’Hanlon’s status.

It careers between state-of-the-nation metaphor, black comic thriller and half-baked mystery