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I'm deeply suspicious of books where chapters open with song lyrics or quotes from characters other than those featured in the text. So when I perused through John Kelly's Sophisticated Boom Boom and noted Elvis Costello quoted here, Al Green quoted there and Brian Eno quoted somewhere else, I knew we were in for something either very good or downright trashy. Actually, Kelly's book is neither but alludes to both. Sophisticated Boom Boom is set in seventies Enniskillen, a rites-of-passage fictional biography of Declan Lydon who uses contemporary music of the time as his A-Z. It probably isn't the best guide to depend on, as we find when Declan's first imaginary experience of the Sex Pistols finds him kissing the floor with a split head and spew holding him fast to the deck. Kelly writes with a humorous style not dissimilar to Colin Bateman. To read Samuel Beckett described as a wiry hore with looks like the Hangin' f***** Rock. even when he was a chile he looked like a quarry is funny indeed, and more than a little accurate! Declan and his friend Spit are great muckers and this is their story of a few miserable years in Enniskillen, coloured with sparkling observations and wicked wit. Sophisticated Boom-Boom has its jarring moments - fictional punk bands' names that don't ring true, those quotes, the local history lessons, but for all that it's a well-travelled journey, made with critical references to Horslips, Thin Lizzy and Van the Man, that many will empathise with and remember it themselves. - Harry Doherty

John Kelly was born in 1965 in County Fermanagh. He works as a writer and broadcaster mainly for RTE and The Irish Times. He is the author of The Little Hammer, published by Cape in 2000. Married with one daughter, he lives in Dublin.