Skip to main content
Books, videos, and music - all free from your public library!
LoginSign Up

Footer

Hoopla logo, Go to homepage
  • For Patrons
  • For Libraries (opens in new window)
  • For Vendors (opens in new window)
  • Facebook (opens in new window)
  • X (opens in new window)
  • Instagram (opens in new window)
  • YouTube (opens in new window)
  • TikTok (opens in new window)
  • LinkedIn (opens in new window)

Our Company

  • Our Story
  • Get Hoopla for your Library (opens in new window)
  • Get your content on hoopla (opens in new window)
  • Join our team (opens in new window)
  • Accessibility Statement

Our Content

  • Audiobooks
  • Ebooks
  • Movies
  • Television
  • Comics
  • BingePasses
  • Music
  • The Loop Blog

Help

  • Help Center
  • Submit Feedback
  • Facebook (opens in new window)
  • X (opens in new window)
  • Instagram (opens in new window)
  • YouTube (opens in new window)
  • TikTok (opens in new window)
  • LinkedIn (opens in new window)
  • Download on the App Store (opens in new window)
  • Get it on Google Play (opens in new window)
  • Available at Amazon Appstore (opens in new window)
© 2026 Midwest Tape, LLC. All rights reserved. Privacy Policy | Terms of Use
  • Hoopla logo
    Powered by Hoopla
  • Browse
  • My Hoopla
  • Log In
  1. Navigate Home
  2. Ebooks
  3. The Third Policeman

EBOOK

The Third Policeman

A Novel

Flann O'Brien
4.1
(27)
sign up
Pages
212
Year
2019
Language
English
Publisher
Open Road Media

About

One man wants to publish, so another must perish, in this darkly witty philosophical novel.

The Third Policeman follows a narrator who is obsessed with the work of a scientist and philosopher named de Selby (who believes that Earth is not round but sausage-shaped)-and has finally completed what he believes is the definitive text on the subject. But, broke and desperate for money to get his scholarly masterpiece published, he winds up committing robbery-and murder.

From here, this remarkably imaginative dark comedy proceeds into a world of riddles, contradictions, and questions about the nature of eternity as our narrator meets some policemen with an obsession of their own (specifically, bicycles), and engages in an extended conversation with his dead victim-and his own soul, which he nicknames Joe.

By the celebrated Irish author praised by James Joyce as "a real writer, with the true comic spirit," The Third Policeman is an incomparable work of fiction.

Related Subjects

  • Classics
  • Adult Fiction
  • Absurdist
  • Satire
  • Literary

Reviews

"Nothing less than dazzling . . . maddening and dizyzing . . . heady and exhilarating . . . it is literally funny as hell."
Time
"Even with Ulysses and Finnegans Wake behind him, James Joyce might have been envious."
TheObserver
"If we don't cherish the work of Flann O'Brien we are stupid fools who don't deserve to have great men. Flann O'Brien is a very great man."
Anthony Burgess

Artists

Flann O'BrienAuthor

Similar Artists

  • James Joyce

  • Laurence Sterne

  • Samuel Beckett

  • W. B. Yeats