A teenage boy witnesses a physical attack on an elderly man in a local wood and is immediately threatened by a menacing stranger to keep what he saw a secret to ensure his father’s safety. A few days later the corpse of a supposedly penniless drunk disappears from his coffin when reposing in a secluded rural church.
The events conspire to turn the life of local curate and former soldier Fr Liam Hegarty upside down. When the boy’s future wellbeing is thrust on his shoulders, Liam’s commitment to try and find peaceful solutions to all conflicts is tested to the extreme when he is forced to become an unwitting trouble-shooter.
Underbelly is a first novel by Askeaton man Tom Fitzgerald. Tom is a member of the Limerick Writers’ Centre.