No-one listens to the radio or goes on a road-trip forever; you escape in the knowledge that the world will recapture you when you’re done. The duo in Danny Denton’s second novel, All Along the Echo, aren’t sure whether this knowledge is frightening or reassuring, and it matters to them: Tony is a radio talk-show presenter, Lou is his producer, and they’re travelling around Ireland in a Mazda, caught between their contented home lives and their desire to be free.

Both have long-term partners, careers and dependants: a teenage daughter, a beloved cat. But Tony’s daughter is self-harming and Lou’s cat has run away; then Lou’s relationship starts to falter, while one from Tony’s past returns. At the same time, in a parallel, slow-building plot, a mysterious figure sneaks out at night to daub graffiti around the streets – something that freaks the Dubliners out. Even the Mazda is a sign of distress: it’s a prize intended for a lucky listener who’s just returned from Britain and “the Troubles in London”, a wave of terrorist attacks. (Denton slyly leaves the details oblique: now Britain is the savage “abroad”, Ireland the principal stage.) To feel settled, this novel suggests, may be to set yourself a trap.

The journey rolls on through encounters with strangers, phone-calls home, and weirdos who ring up Tony’s show, from an ecstatic birdwatcher to a terrified man who thinks paedophiles “hunt in packs”. The pages are a whirl of fonts and graphics – Tony’s listeners become obsessed with the graffiti, as if it were invading their personal lives – and burst with voices that often have personality, but sometimes emerge nameless from “static” to whisper Tony’s secrets aloud. The Rose of Tralee, an old Irish ballad, echoes in the pages hundreds of times. All Along the Echo is a beautiful cacophony.

All Along the Echo is published by Atlantic at £14.99. To order your copy for £12.99 call 0844 871 1514 or visit books.telegraph.co.uk