HI LOVE, YOU JUST DROPPED YOUR GLOVE

Thomas Barry, Lefty Kelly, and Brendy McCusker were all teenage boys who were roaming the streets of Portrush, Country Antrim in Northern Ireland in 1976 when Thomas Barry quite literally bumped into Isabella Scott, and he uttered the words of the title. In July 2019 the same Thomas Barry’s remains were discovered at the foot of the Pilgrim’s Steps in the Portrush Harbour. There were an extra 200,000 people visiting Portrush that week as The Royal Golf Club played host to Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy and the UK Open Tournament.

McCusker and DI Lily O’Carroll are conscripted from the PSNI (Police Service of Northern Ireland) in Belfast to help the already stretched local police force work on the case. They discover McCusker’s childhood friends Barry and Isabella Scott had married and then… well then everything became very complicated relationships wise involving Isabella’s sister, Colette, lawyers, accountants and showband singers. Thomas had become an ultra-successful property developer, sometimes in partnership with the Buckley Brothers, at least one of whom doesn’t mind the cowboy approach to work.  Meanwhile McCusker is pining over a recent relationship he had started back in Belfast with O’Carroll’s sister, Grace

Set against the backdrop of the (actual) UK Golf Open taking place in a small seaside town, where absolutely everyone has an opinion, and their opinions they are keen to share.