PROPHET SONG by Paul Lynch

Unease escalates into an avalanche of chaos when a totalitarian regime takes over Ireland.  Eilish, a microbiologist, is left to manage her three teenagers and an infant after her husband is detained.  Plus, Eilish’s father’s dementia is getting worse, but he refuses to leave his home.  She has her hands full, and then her seventeen-year-old son joins the rebellion after he receives a conscription notice from the regime.  Eilish’s sister lives in Canada, so that it would behoove her to get the rest of her family out, but she stubbornly refuses to believe that things can get any worse, and she holds out hope that her son and husband will return home.  The situation continues to spin out of control, and the breakneck pace of the novel makes it frightening, to say the least.  In fact, this novel may supplant The Exorcist, which I read in 1974, as the scariest book I have ever read, and there is nothing supernatural about this one.  Also, the title is misleading for a book this gripping that feels all too real.