In the summer of 1922, Robert Shannon, a Marine chaplain and a young American hero of the Great War, lands in Ireland. He still suffers from shell shock, and his mentor hopes that a journey Robert had always wanted to make—to find his family roots along the banks of the River Shannon—will restore his equilibrium and his vocation. But there is more to the story: On his return from the war, Robert had witnessed startling corruption in the Archdiocese of Boston. He has been sent to Ireland to secure his silence—permanently. As Robert faces the dangers of a strife-torn Ireland roiling in civil war, the nation’s myths and people, its beliefs and traditions, unfurl healingly before him. And the River Shannon gives comfort to the young man who is inspired by the words of his mentor: “Find your soul and you’ll live.” “A rousing tale of forbidden love, civil war, horrible death and other things Irish. …A fine adventure in storytelling…[and] a well-crafted, satisfying work of historical fiction, as are all of Delaney’s novels; respectful of the facts while not cowed by them, and full of life.” — Kirkus Reviews “A tale of personal healing and spiritual redemption against the Irish Civil war…Delaney takes great pains to evoke not only the physical but spiritual beauty of the land and people along the River Shannon. He provides incredibly researched details about not only the geological nature of a river winding its way to the sea but the mystical effect this simple body of water has had on its residents for millennia [and] provides timely insights about the raw, damaged output of war and the far-reaching impact it can have…This book is almost impossible to put down and provides a very satisfying, and maybe even surprising, conclusion to all the different storylines.”— Midwest Irish Focus “Thoughtful, spiritual though not overbearing, and rounded out with a nice vein of intrigue.” — Publishers Weekly   “Delaney makes his lovely, battered country a character of its own.”— USA Today “A gripping story . . . As with Charles Frazier’s Cold Mountain and a couple of other recent works, [Shannon] is the story of an odyssey. . . . Delaney again shows himself to be a master user of the language, a master at historical fiction and a master storyteller in the Irish tradition.”— Winston-Salem Journal “An engaging read . . . filled with eccentric characters, treachery, and ultimately, redemption.”— The Star-Ledger   “Delaney, a native of Ireland . . . knows the territory. Ireland is a living place and its people compelling.”— Rocky Mountain News Frank Delaney  is the author of the  New York Times  bestselling novel  Ireland , as well as  The Last Storyteller, The Matchmaker of Kenmare, Venetia Kelly’s Traveling Show, Tipperary, Shannon,  and  Simple Courage: A True Story of Peril on the Sea.  A former judge for the Man Booker Prize, Delaney enjoyed a prominent career in BBC broadcasting before becoming a full-time writer. Delaney died in 2017. Chapter 1 At the vulnerable age of thirty, Robert Shannon lost his soul. Nothing is worse; no greater danger exists. Only sinners lose their souls, it’s said, through the evil that they do. Not Robert Shannon. Incapable of anything but good, he lost his soul through savagery that he witnessed, horrors that he saw. And then, as he was repairing himself and his beliefs, he was ravaged further in the pursuit of his own faith. When you ?lose—?or have ripped from ?you—?the spirit that directs you, you have two options. Fight for your soul and win it back, and you’ll evermore be a noble human being. Fail, and you die from loss of truth. And so, just before dawn one morning in 1922, Robert Shannon stood on the deck of a slow old freighter on the southwest coast of Ireland and looked inland. This was the point to which he had come in search of his lost best self. If he could have explained clearly what he was doing, he would have said that he wanted to find the man he had been. If he could have described lucidly the essence of his journey across the Atlantic, he would have expressed the wish that here, in the country of his forebears, some ancient magic of ancestry might restore him. Could it be that in the old land, of which he had so often dreamed, he might find, to begin with, hope? But what he desperately needed to rediscover was belief. On the port side, the western hills slept low and dark; to starboard rose the tall and ragged box of a ruined castle. A lighthouse came gliding into view, its lantern’s beam fading against the opening skies. These were sights he had expected to see, and as they approached they comforted ?him—?insofar as he could feel comfort. The dark rocks, though watching carefully, offered no threat, and the freighter steamed in, composed now in the estuary’s calm after weeks of coping with the burly sea. Find your soul and you’ll live. Ashore, colors began to wake up and stretch. A gray triangle became a lawn of green. In a whitewashed cottage wall, a dark o