Cheeky humor enlivens ‘Wild Houses’

Irish writer Colin Barrett has won widespread, fervent acclaim for two short-story collections. He brings that form’s compression and tensile sentences to his debut novel, “Wild Houses,” which chronicles a weekend from hell in the small city of Ballina, County Mayo, as a gang of drug smugglers implodes and a kidnapping goes horribly awry. Here,…

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Retail is up, so is crime, counterfeiting

The National Retail Federation’s latest “State of Retail & the Consumer” report forecasts that retail sales will reach nearly $5.3 trillion this year, a 3% increase over last year. The retail sector is responsible for 55 million full-time jobs and 20.4% of U.S. gross domestic product, the NRF reports. But headlines about crime and store…

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