Some Experiences of an Irish R.M.

When Major Sinclair Yates leaves the British army to become a Resident Magistrate in the wilds of late-1890s County Cork, he discovers that enforcing law and order in rural Ireland requires a very different skill set from military command. Yates finds himself thwarted at every turn by his irredeemable neighbor, the gloriously monomaniacal Mr. Flurry Knox, whose passion for hunting transcends all propriety, patience, and frequently the law itself. TheResult is a sequence of gloriously comic collisions between English bureaucratic precision and Irish chaos, between the dignity of the judicial office and the magnificent disorder of the hunt. Somerville and Martin write with a sharp, affectionate eye for the absurdities of the Anglo-Irish Ascendancy in its final flowering, capturing a world where the most respected citizens are those who can ride to hounds through a clocked hedge and get away with it. These are gentle satires, but they're also perfectly observed comedy of manners, powered by a love for their subjects that's as clear as their delight in skewering them. Anyone who savors Wilde's wit, George Bernard Shaw's edge, or the pleasures of hunting stories done with absolute seriousness will find these tales irresistible.