Turlough by Brian Keenan (Vintage, £6.99 in UK)

Brian Keenan's first novel is described as "a personal debt repaid" to Turlough Carolan, the blind 17th-century harpist whose ghostly presence Keenan felt sustained him during his four years as a hostage in Beirut. In their parallel lives of captivity and darkness survived and later transformed by art, author and subject are a good match. In Turlough, the legendary musician and the friends gathered around his deathbed pool their recollections of his itinerant life. Blinded by smallpox in early adulthood, Turlough is saved by his musical gift and embarks on a lifelong journey around Ireland, where he is loved for giving voice to a suppressed culture. It is darkness and struggle that seem to interest Keenan. What is lacking is the lightness of touch that the harpist himself insisted was his greatest artistic strength.