Dead Reckoning

by Rex Owens

After Ian Murphy's life-long friend, Kieran Fitzpatrick, dies unexpectedly, Ian's brief sobriety is shattered. With his life adrift, Ian feels incapable of fulfilling Kieran's last request—to serve as a mentor to his 22-year-old nephew, William. To honor Kieran, Ian reluctantly accepts the role, never realizing how important this relationship will become.

During this turmoil, Ian attempts to ease the guilt he bears for his covert IRA past by encouraging Northern Ireland's Catholics to vote for the Sinn Fein candidates in the upcoming election. While the election is successful, Ian's guilt is as bad as ever. To free himself from this burden, Ian decides to offer an act of contrition to the Irish people, a memoir stage play.

Kieran’s nephew directs this live act of remorse. The stage play "Dead Reckoning" reveals Ian's secret life in the IRA. Will Ian's repentance for his complicity in the horrors of The Troubles cleanse his guilt and allow him to begin a new life?

DEAD RECKONING is the third and final book in the Ian Murphy Irish Troubles series.

233 pages, Kindle Edition

First published April 6, 2018

About the author

My work explores our motives to make life changing decisions and searches for common themes in our journey to create ourselves.

Reviews

[Shay · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rex does an amazing job on his storytelling. I wasn't sure I would like this one, the first two were so dynamic and high action, how can he follow that up when all is said and done? He does it expertly in capturing the emotional intensity of how to fix a grievous mistake made early in life by Ian and atone for a suffering country while finding his own way out of the drug induced darkness of alcoholism and facing his demons to come into a light by honestly bearing his sins for all of Ireland to witness. The best piece was casting a narcissist to portray a narcissist and have the character explode at the wrongness of it, to the betterment of the play's success. The author gives us contemplative pause when he poses the issue of how much Ian's life is the product of Ireland's history and how much control there is in determining one's own self-determination or path. It suggests it might be helpful for each person to take time for self-reflection and gain perspective on our own life's path. Accept ourselves and forgive our human failings. Brilliantly written as historically appealing then as it now here in the U.S. as well as Ireland. I am hard put to think of a historical novelist who tells a story so engagingly, enthralling and with characters so strong and appealing to the core. Thank you for a beautiful trilogy inspiring a lesson on how to live a beautiful, satisfying life despite the challenges put in ones path.