Ross O'Carroll-Kelly

So I wake up in the hotel in Nantes to find a letter on my bedside table, which turns out to be from – yeah, no – my old man?

The old man is as excited as I’ve seen him since the members of Elm Pork Golf Club voted to name the lateral water hazard on the 12th hole “the Chorles River”. It’s, like, Friday night – the night before Ireland play Romania in the opening match of the Rugby World Cup – and I’m sitting in The Connemora in Bordeaux, listening to him phone pretty much everyone he’s ever known in his entire life to tell them his so-called news.

Sorcha is tense. Yeah, no, for her, the first day back after the school holidays is like the first day of the Six Nations for me. In other words, a matter of life and death.

The old man looks surprisingly well for a man who’s been banged up for, like, a week and a bit. I’m sitting in the visiting room when he walks in and he’s, like, deep in conversation with another, I want to say, inmate? It’s a good, like, five minutes before he saunters over to where I’m sitting...irishtimes.com/author/ross-ocarroll-kelly/

I’m no stranger to seeing my old man standing in the dock accused of serious crimes – he’s Chorles O’Carrroll-Kelly, for fock’s sake – but I never thought I’d see him in court, aged seventy-whatever-he-is, chorged with the illegal possession of a fireorm.

This is the final exclusive excerpt from Camino Royale, the new Ross O’Carroll-Kelly novel out today Thursday, August 17th.

This is the second of three exclusive excerpts from Camino Royale, the new Ross O’Carroll-Kelly novel out this Thursday, August 17th 2023.

This is the first of three exclusive excerpts from Camino Royale, the new Ross O’Carroll Kelly novel out this Thursday, August 17th 2023.

Sorcha is sitting at the kitchen island with her laptop open and a pleased-with-herself smile that I recognise from the Mount Anville Class of 1998 graduation photograph on her bedside table.