Breakfast in a hotel, a stroll through town then it’s off to a meting with clients, followed by dinner and bed … what could be more routine in the life of a travelling businessman?

But this is Hiroshima, no ordinary city. And for this Belfast businessman, the past is not quite so innocent as the product that he is selling. When he meets Ike, a fellow traveller from Belfast who just happens to be in Japan for a conference on ‘writing and conflict’, the narrator gradually finds that the past and its legacies cannot be ignored, whether he’s in Belfast or Hiroshima.

Bristling with taut psychological energy, The Third Party is a knowing and powerful exploration of the legacies of war by one of our best Irish writers. Glenn Patterson is also the author of Burning Your Own, Fat Lad and The International, all published by Blackstaff Press.