The Murderer and the Taoiseach

The Murderer and the Taoiseach

Author: Harry McGee

Publisher: Hachette Books Ireland

Published: 2023-05-18

Total Pages: 320

ISBN-13: 1399718606

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'An incredible and compelling story' MATT COOPER 'Gripping, unpretentious, brilliant and unputdownable' BUSINESS POST A Murderer. A Leader. The Scandal of an Era. In the summer of 1982, Irish aristocrat Malcolm Macarthur embarked on a brutal killing spree in a doomed plan to remedy his financial woes. Two weeks later, in a sensational turn of events, he was arrested in the home of Attorney General Patrick Connolly. The scandal attracted worldwide headlines and resulted in untold damage to then Taoiseach Charles Haughey. The words he used to describe the dark events - grotesque, unbelievable, bizarre and unprecedented - coined the era-defining phrase GUBU. Here, award-winning political journalist Harry McGee retraces the happenings of that long hot summer and beyond. From the cat-and-mouse game to track down an unpredictable killer to Macarthur's extraordinary capture, he considers both the life and psyche of a murderer, and that of the leading political figure of the time - a man similarly driven by greed, status and a sense of himself as existing above the law. Including previously unknown aspects of the trial and interaction with Malcolm Macarthur himself, The Murderer and the Taoiseach is a compulsive journey through tragedy and scandal. 'Brisk, illuminating, crackling with detail' TONY CONNELLY 'A brilliant account of shocking crimes and the dramatic political crisis they caused' DAVID McCULLAGH


The Book of Evidence

The Book of Evidence

Author: John Banville

Publisher: Vintage

Published: 2012-03-07

Total Pages: 224

ISBN-13: 0307817121

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John Banville’s stunning powers of mimicry are brilliantly on display in this engrossing novel, the darkly compelling confession of an improbable murderer. Freddie Montgomery is a highly cultured man, a husband and father living the life of a dissolute exile on a Mediterranean island. When a debt comes due and his wife and child are held as collateral, he returns to Ireland to secure funds. That pursuit leads to murder. And here is his attempt to present evidence, not of his innocence, but of his life, of the events that lead to the murder he committed because he could. Like a hero out of Nabokov or Camus, Montgomery is a chillingly articulate, self-aware, and amoral being, whose humanity is painfully on display.


I Can Ski!

I Can Ski!

Author: Claire McGee

Publisher: Clairemcgee

Published: 2020-07-15

Total Pages: 34

ISBN-13: 9781734716511

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Kevin tries to overcome his fears while still enjoying the adventure of learning to ski. The courage he gains from the ski instructor and his family provides just the boost he needs. Kevin learns that bravery comes from love, kindness, and encouragement from those you trust.


Creation Stories

Creation Stories

Author: Alan McGee

Publisher: Pan Macmillan

Published: 2013-11-07

Total Pages: 327

ISBN-13: 0283071788

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'Essential reading for anyone interested in the heady, vulgar, marvellous miasma of British music and culture in the nineties' – Irving Welsh 'A true believer in the power of music and more importantly a believer in the people that make music. He gave me and many more like me a chance to change my life' – Noel Gallagher Alan McGee's Creation Stories is a star-studded, outrageous, funny and anarchic account of the record label he set up and the bands that defined an era, including Primal Scream and Oasis. A charismatic Glaswegian who partied just as hard as any of the acts on his notoriously hedonistic label, Alan McGee became an infamous character in the world of music in the nineties. In Creation Stories he tells his story in depth for the first time, from leaving school at sixteen to setting up the Living Room club in London which showcased many emerging indie bands, from managing the Jesus and Mary Chain to co-founding Creation when he was only twenty-three. His label brought us acts like My Bloody Valentine, House of Love, Ride and, of course, Primal Scream. Embracing acid house, Alan decamped to Manchester and hung out at the Hacienda. His drug-induced breakdown, when it came, was dramatic. But as he climbed back to sobriety, he oversaw Oasis's rise to become one of the biggest bands in the world. Alan himself becoming one of the figureheads of Britpop. Having sold the label to Sony to stave off bankruptcy, he became disenchanted with the increasingly corporate ethos and left in 1999. Since then he's continued to be an influential figure in the music industry, managing the Libertines and setting up a new label, 359 Music, with Cherry Red. 'Studded with diamond anecdotes . . . From mixing sound for My Bloody Valentine on mushrooms, via driving motorists off the road by commissioning billboard posters of Kevin Rowland flashing his pants, to escorting Carl Barat to A&E with one eyeball hanging out of its socket, the book bursts with tall-but-true tales.' – NME


Deception and Lies

Deception and Lies

Author: David Burke

Publisher: Mercier Press Ltd

Published: 2020-09-18

Total Pages: 374

ISBN-13: 1781177880

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In May of 1970, two government ministers were dismissed from Cabinet for allegedly purchasing guns for the IRA. The Taoiseach Jack Lynch disavowed any knowledge of the plot. Few believed him. Charles Haughey, Minister for Finance, a captain in Irish military intelligence along with two others were put on trial. All were acquitted. Haughey refused to talk about the crisis for the rest of his life. Fianna Fail endured decades of splits, turmoil and leadership heaves. Until now, no one has revealed the pivotal role of an IRA informer in the affair. The part he played became the best-kept State secret of the last half-century. The book also reveals a dirty tricks campaign by Britain's Foreign Office to conceal the ancillary role of a British agent called Capt. Markham-Randall in the murder of Garda Richard Fallon on the eve of the eruption of the Arms Crisis.


Web of Betrayal

Web of Betrayal

Author: Nicola Tallant

Publisher: Bonnier Books UK

Published: 2024-10-17

Total Pages: 223

ISBN-13: 1804187151

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'Nicola Tallant, not for the first time, demonstrates why she is the very best writer on crime. No novelist alive could ever imagine the very complex and very dark human dramas that she skilfully unravels, delivering page after page of truth-telling that we must pay attention to' - Darragh MacIntyre From the author of the 2023 bestselling Cocaine Cowboys, murder and deception and the underworld of Irish gangland intertwine in a deadly dance of power and survival. A murder in Belfast of gangland's most wanted man, Robbie Lawlor, uncovers a web of betrayal that spans out across the Irish underworld and beyond. Follow a bloody trail that leads all the way into the heart of one of the worst gang feuds Ireland has ever seen which culminates in the Narco style dismemberment of a teenage boy, Keane Mulready Woods. And as the curtain is pulled back on the inner workings of the world of organised crime, a cast of ruthless characters take centre stage for their place in a double cross plot that reads like a fast-paced thriller.


The Secret Serial Killer

The Secret Serial Killer

Author: Robert Mulhern

Publisher: Pen and Sword

Published: 2019-04-30

Total Pages: 205

ISBN-13: 1526722771

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This true crime investigation into the notorious case of Kieran Kelly reveals “new twists that add further intrigue to the mystery” (Irish Post). On the evening of August 21,1983, Metropolitan Police detectives raced to London’s Clapham Police Station to find a prisoner dead. His cellmate sat quietly in the corner. Kieran Kelly, a laborer from Ireland, calmly confessed to strangling the prisoner—and then stunned officers by confessing to dozens of unreported and unsolved murders over the previous 30 years. Kelly may have been Britain’s most prolific serial killer, yet he was convicted on just two of his admissions. In 2015, a former police officer who worked on the case made a bombshell accusation: that Kelly' crimes were covered up by the British Government. Strangulations, murders on the London Underground, an internal Metropolitan Police review—as the story’s elements whipped the international news media into a frenzy, journalist Robert Mulhern set off from London to rural Ireland on a methodical search for the truth. Could Kieran Kelly really have murdered 31 times?


The Irish Assassins

The Irish Assassins

Author: Julie Kavanagh

Publisher: Grove Atlantic

Published: 2021-08-03

Total Pages: 328

ISBN-13: 0802149383

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A brilliant true crime account of the assassinations that altered the course of Irish history from the “compulsively readable” writer (The Guardian). One sunlit evening, May 6, 1882, Lord Frederick Cavendish and Thomas Burke, Chief Secretary and Undersecretary for Ireland, were ambushed and stabbed to death while strolling through Phoenix Park in Dublin. The murders were funded by American supporters of Irish independence and carried out by the Invincibles, a militant faction of republicans armed with specially made surgeon’s blades. They put an end to the new spirit of goodwill that had been burgeoning between British Prime Minister William Gladstone and Ireland’s leader Charles Stewart Parnell as the men forged a secret pact to achieve peace and independence in Ireland—with the newly appointed Cavendish, Gladstone’s protégé, to play an instrumental role in helping to do so. In a story that spans Donegal, Dublin, London, Paris, New York, Cannes, and Cape Town, Julie Kavanagh thrillingly traces the crucial events that came before and after the murders. From the adulterous affair that caused Parnell’s downfall; to Queen Victoria’s prurient obsession with the assassinations; to the investigation spearheaded by Superintendent John Mallon, also known as the “Irish Sherlock Holmes,” culminating in the eventual betrayal and clandestine escape of leading Invincible James Carey and his murder on the high seas, The Irish Assassins brings us intimately into this fascinating story that shaped Irish politics and engulfed an Empire. Praise for Julie Kavanagh’s Nureyev: The Life “Easily the best biography of the year.” —The Philadelphia Inquirer “The definitive biography of ballet’s greatest star whose ego was as supersized as his talent.” —Tina Brown, award-winning journalist and author


The Report of the Patrick Finucane Review

The Report of the Patrick Finucane Review

Author: Patrick Finucane Review

Publisher: The Stationery Office

Published: 2012-12-12

Total Pages: 340

ISBN-13: 9780102981087

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Patrick Finucane, a practising lawyer who frequently acted for prominent members of the IRA, was murdered in his home in North Belfast by the loyalist paramilitary group, the Ulster Defence Association (UDA) on the evening of 12 February 1989. Earlier reports by Lord Stevens (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/spl/hi/northern_ireland/03/stephens_inquiry/pdf/stephens_inquiry.pdf ) and Judge Cory (HCP 470, 2003-04, ISBN 9780102927412) came to clear conclusions that there was collusion but there has still been only limited information in the public domain. Sir Desmond de Silva was tasked with producing a full public account of any involvement by the Army, the Royal Ulster Constabulary, the Security Service (MI5) or other UK government body in the murder. Overall, de Silva was left in significant doubt as to whether Patrick Finucane would have been murdered by the UDA had it not been for the different strands of involvement by elements of the State. Furthermore there was a series of positive actions by employees of the State that actively furthered and facilitated his murder and that, in the aftermath there was a relentless attempt to defeat the ends of justice. However, each of the facets of the collusion that were manifest - the passage of information from members of the security forces to the UDA, the failure to act on threat intelligence, the participation of State agents in the murder and the subsequent failure to investigate and arrest key members of the West Belfast UDA - can each be explained by wider thematic issues which have been examined as part of the Review


A Good Father

A Good Father

Author: Catherine Talbot

Publisher: Penguin UK

Published: 2021-02-25

Total Pages: 239

ISBN-13: 0241987547

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'Brilliant . . . I couldn't stop reading' Jo Spain 'Exceptional . . . Deeply chilling' Jane Casey ______________ Des is a good husband, a good father - a good man. He encourages his wife's artistic endeavours, reads bedtime stories to his children every night, and holds down a well-paid job. But appearances can be deceptive. His wife seems to be forgetting that her art is for his eyes only. Rumours at work are threatening his reputation as a devoted family man. And his kids don't seem to need him as much as they once did. Des is afraid. Afraid of the world encroaching on his home. Afraid of past mistakes catching up with him. So afraid of losing control over his family that he is contemplating the unthinkable. A Good Father is a dark and gripping novel that takes you into the mind of a man on the edge. __________________ 'This intricately made novel marks the debut of a writer from whom, and of whom, we shall be hearing much in coming times' John Banville 'Captivating . . . Readers will come for the premise and stay for its clever unpacking' Irish Times 'A devastating new voice in Irish fiction . . . Magnificent' Joe Duffy 'A great read, it's gripping, at times disturbing' Miriam O'Callaghan, RTÉ Radio 1