We might have known he'd do something like this….

I wonder if Dunne said, "Eureka!"

That is, I wonder if he woke up in the middle of the night to find True Confessions all right there in his head—that priests and detectives, Irish Catholicism of the Fifties, Los Angeles (his home these days), and Harold Pugh had recombined themselves into a tale of fraternal rivalry, politics, and murder….

Probably not. Writers don't have it that easy…. Dunne may have had to sweat blood over this book, but the result is one of those novels in which all the elements fit together so aptly and simply and apparently naturally that it seems, like vodka and orange juice, a truly inspired combination….

The author of True Confessions is, for my money, a very funny man indeed, and if we weren't in mixed company I'd quote a few of the...