Dublin-born writer Jeremy Massey comes from a long family line of funeral directors.
He draws on this working knowledge for his debut novel, The Last Four Days of Paddy Buckley (2015). It's a quirky crime thriller, a black comedy crossed with a love story set in Dublin.
Paddy Buckley is a widower and a lowly undertaker. One night driving home from work he hits a pedestrian. He pulls over, and as he bends down to help he recognises the man. It’s the brother of a notorious mobster, and he’s dead.
Shocked and scared, Paddy jumps back in his car and drives off. The next morning at the funeral home, Paddy has to look after the grieving brother.Paddy Buckley began life as a film script in the mid-1990s, then Massey made several attempts to turn it into a novel.
He is a third-generation undertaker who worked for many years at the family firm in Dublin. A screenwriter by training, he now lives in Melbourne in Australia, after stints in London and Los Angeles.
