The Hangman’s Story

By Nicholas Best

Dublin in the 1950s.

Eighteen-year-old Eamonn Farrell has been sentenced to death for the murder of a policeman. Ireland has no hangman, so the English executioner has been hired to do the job.

Carrying his equipment in a brown leather case, an anonymous figure leaves home in the English midlands and sets off for Dublin. Will he reach the gaol and execute Farrell? Or will the IRA get to him first?

Nicholas Best grew up in Kenya. He was the fiction critic for the Financial Times before becoming a full-time author. His books have been translated across the world, and he has been shortlisted for the Sunday Times Short Story Award.