A Game with Sharpened Knives

In 1939, the life of an Austrian physicist was saved by a revolutionary whose own sentence of execution had been commuted almost twenty years earlier. The physicist was Erwin Schrodinger, charismatic winner of the Nobel prize for Physics in 1931, forced to flee when the Nazis entered Austria; the revolutionary was the Irisch Fuhrer, Eamon de Valera. These are the extraordinary facts behind this extraordinary fiction. Murder is in the air, and on the sea beyond the mouth of the river Liffey. German bombs are dropping, accidentally it is reported, on Dublin. In 1941, Ireland is a country not truly at peace, either with Germany, or with its neighbour across the Irish sea, or in fact with itself. Erwin Schrodinger, bohemian intellectual and emotional enigma, is living in cramped exile in the village of Clontarf on the outskirts of Dublin, with his wife, his lover and their child. A Game with Sharpened Knives is the story of a man foundering on his own desires, a man who often finds it easier to say nothing, for no one in the tense and impoverished city of Dublin is quite what they appear. The first language of this country, as Erwin's Irish lover tells him, is silence.From the winner of the Irish Times prize, a first work of fiction, and a truly magnificent novel.

About the Author :
Neil Belton is non fiction Publishing Director of Faber & Faber. He was born in Clontarf, the Dublin suburb in which his subject took refuge. He was educated in Dublin and now lives in London.

Review :
This is a text you will remember for years.....austere, authoritative fiction, a fine and melancholy novel, its poignant insights shimmering...... - London Review of Books - Hilary Mantel Neil Belton's first novel is an improbable masterpiece.....what makes this such an impressive first novel is the eloquence and energy of the prose'.. thoroughly to be recommended. - THE EVENING STANDARD - Daniel Johnson Historical novel, tragic romance, war fiction, epic of ideas, (it) is full of such menace'' worth reading and re-reading - THE GUARDIAN - Finn Fordham He writes of dreariness with beautiful clarity that makes it as exhilarating as a mid-winter swim in Dublin Bay. - THE SUNDAY TELEGRAPH - Patrick Skene Catling an ambitious and atmsopheric novel. - OBSERVER - Hephzibah Anderson This is a book steeped in veiled threats and intrigue......Belton's novel is hauntingly powerful. - LITERARY REVIEW - James Morrison Neil Belton's book is very different and really good... Its greatest strength is in its depiction of Dublin.....powerful and enthralling. - THE SCOTSMAN - Allan Massie elegantly received and deftly executed - THE DAILY MAIL - Stephanie Cross