He gets a job working for the dying town's dying newspaper, "The Daily Truth," which is run by two old men, Sam, the owner, and Ed, the paper's photographer. Sam and Ed believe Bill, who is somewhat of a wordsmith and given to fanciful prose, will someday turn out to be a good journalist.
Salvation for the newspaper comes when Ronny Lawton's father disappears. Lawton is a tattooed burger flipper at Denny's, who despite having reported his father's absence, becomes a suspect for the presumed murder. The case re-energizes the "Truth's" disillusioned staff, but the initial promise of a scoop for Bill gradually translates into an obsession with Lawton and his estranged wife. As the crime casts its shadow on the lives of his newspaper colleagues and on the nightmarish reverberations of his own father's suicide, it also begins to take on symbolic dimensions as many people in the town try to take advantage of the murder.
Michael Collins won the Irish Book of the Year Award for this book and it's easy to see why. It deserves the high esteem it has won in Ireland and I highly recommend it.
Karen Holtz, New Jersey Book Girl
The plot revolves around the disappearance and suspected murder of a local good-for-nothing, old man Lawton, the main suspect being his no-good son, Ronny. The only evidence found is traces of blood and a joint of the old man's finger. The narrator, Bill, a reporter covering the investigation for the local newspaper, The Truth, has doubts about Ronny's guilt. Bill - himself a lonely, troubled figure burdened by memories of his father's suicide and his immigrant grandfather's tyranny - is drawn into involvement with Ronny who lives in a shack and works at the local Denny's where he is designated Employee of the month; and, almost against his will, is also sucked into involvement with Ronny's estranged wife. Small lives, small desperations, in a small, depressed townscape - the flip side of the American Dream.
The novel is an uneasy blend of murder mystery and social commentary on American society in the eighties. Collins has a reputation for producing "literary" novels with powerful narrative and the "Keepers of Truth" is written in this style. Bill, the reporter, as well as narrating the unfolding murder mystery, also functions as social commentator, belabouring the theme of industrial decay blighting towns and lives. This intermingling - as opposed to seamless integration - of murder plot narrative and social commentary, while adding to the "literary" weight of the novel, in my view, diminishes the power and pace of the narrative in the exposition of the murder mystery. In a nutshell, the pace and drive of the strong murder plot narrative is sometimes compromised by overload of side commentary and philosophical musings on American society. Certainly, a book that makes the reader think is laudable but this must be balanced against engaging - and retaining - the reader's interest. Collins at times verges on disengaging the reader's interest.