John M. Feehan gives us another book of memorable beauty. This time he cruised two hundred miles of the River Shannon, from Killaloe to Lough Key, calling at all the little country harbours along the way. Again we meet a variety of strange and unusual characters: a tramp of the old school, a theologically-minded pick-pocket, a literary courtesan, a bizarre corpse-washer with an eye for the artistic, a specialist in the romantic moods of frogs, snails and hedgehogs. These and many others, people the pages of The Secret Places of the Shannon. With a sensitive and rare touch he describes those precious moments of time when earth and sky and water are blended into flashes of unforgettable loveliness. He sees the pain and the sorrow of human suffering as well as rollicking laughter of human joy. Dominating all of this is the majestic Shannon with a thousand years of history around every bend.