A small time Dublin thief (we’re never told his name) suddenly finds himself out of his depth. Used to stealing cash and jewels, which he can easily fence and sell on, he now finds that the paintings he stole, from a country house, are a Rembrandt, a Gainborough and two Guardis. How does he sell them, for a good profit, without alerting the police? And the police are becoming more and more interested in him because his alcoholic mother has been loose-lipped around her new friend.

This story was originally included in Toibin’s collection Mothers and Sons. In June, 2006, Picador published it as part of their Picador Shots, pocket-sized books containing one story.

The premise of this story is interesting, a criminal falls into a personal existential angst because he has stolen paintings he can’t easily sell, and is facing trusting people he doesn’t know. Unfortunately, the excursion of this story just fades away. Toibin spends a lot of time on the thief’s past. At first this is interesting, but when so much space is given over to it, it means we get so little on thief’s present day life. Why is his falling apart? We have little discussion of that, so little time is given to thief’s current relationship with his mother and we’re not even told thief’s wife’s name.

What is most disappointing, is the ending. This story doesn’t end as much as it just fades out with an unexpected event, running opposite to the story’s narrative. It felt as Toibin hit his word limit and had to hastily bring this story to an end. The ending was so disappointing that it left a sour taste in my mouth.

I wanted to like this story but was disappointed by its poor ending and the way Toibin did not explore his interesting premise. Maybe other stories in Mothers and Sons are better, but I hope this one wasn’t the best.

Find it here on Amazon