Set in Ireland between the 1900s and 1950s, SHADE is a haunting novel of love and war. Beginning with a violent and mysterious murder, SHADE tells the story of two pairs of siblings growing up in Ireland in the first half of the century and how their lives interweave. Through a childhood that memory will give the luster of romance and the tragedy that comes as the children's innocence ends and the two boys leave for the Great War, these unforgettable characters reach mid-century inexorably moving towards playing roles in the brutal murder that begins the novel---a murder that may ultimately be revealed as the opposite of the senseless crime it seems.

Neil Jordan is the award-winning writer and director of such films as MONA LISA, THE END OF THE AFFAIR, and THE CRYING GAME, for which he won an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay in 1993. He is also the author of three previous novels and a short story collection.