Martin Dillon is one of Ireland’s foremost journalists and one of the best writers on the troubles. His seminal title, Dirty War, masterfully analysed the intelligence war that encompassed informers and special forces, while his title The Shankhill Butchers, shone a light on one of the darkest periods of the conflict, a band of loyalist paramilitaries that were more like serial killers. The Serpent’s Tail is Dillon’s first foray into fiction, albeit a novel loosely based on real events.

Stephen KirkPatrick and Michael McDonnell are two Catholic teenagers working as informants for the RUC’s Special Branch. Kirkpatrick is a sensitive lad who just wants to escape to the United States for a new life with his girlfriend, Bernadette. McDonnell is a cocky and arrogant womaniser, who just wants money. Together, they’re recruited by a shadowy intelligence and military operation to do lasting damage to the IRA

I’m a huge fan of Dillon’s non-fiction work and so I really, really wanted to like this book. Unfortunately, The Serpent’s Tail just didn’t do it for me. There’s a risk when someone who’s spent their career writing non-fiction turns to fiction, the two are very different skills. Martin Dillon isn’t the first heavyweight journalist to fall at the hurdle – various BBC journalists have tried their hand at writing fiction, and while some have succeeded, more have not, and included in the latter are some of the corporation’s stars.

The Serpent’s tail labours under unconvincing characters. I just didn't find many of the characters in this book particularly believable. To be sure, some were well written, Stephen Kirkpatrick, the more sensitive of the two boys in particular. His cocky partner, Michael Mcdonnell, was simply implausible. Throughout the book, he’s fearless in the face of IRA interrogation, MI5 and the SAS. This is just an ordinary kid from the streets of Belfast and yet nothing fazes him. Then there are characters who seem to have no purpose whatsoever. Jimmy Carson, a neighbour to Stephen, who takes him under his wing, is one example. Clearly, Dillon meant him to be a foil to Stephen, someone who Stephen could confide in and who could guide him, but the parts of the book Jimmy features in seem just padding, and he spends his time dispensing cod psychology.

A final issue in this book is Dillon’s propensity to tell rather than show. Any good creative writing course will teach the budding author the power of “Show don’t Tell”. Simply put, instead of writing “so and so was angry”, the author describes their anger, how it manifests. On a larger scale, this can apply to a character’s motivations as well as the broader plot. Dillon appears not to have learnt that lesson and too much of this title is spent telling the reader what is going on.

The Serpent’s Tail isn’t a bad book, but neither is it particularly good. There are flashes of brilliance here, the novelist Dillon could be. I hope he writes a second novel, for he has the potential to become as good a novelist as he is a non-fiction author, though I think he should hone his craft further first.

Engrossing!
What an engrossing read! Serpent’s Tail by Martin Dillon will surely become a classic of our times. I say “our times” in that this novel set in the “Troubles” of Northern Ireland has a backdrop of recent modern British history.
No one is possibly better equipped to write this novel as Dillon has written several non-fiction books about the “Troubles” and is considered an expert on the subject. He was born in Belfast and worked in that city as a journalist before fleeing Ireland as a result of terrorist threats.
His immense knowledge of the security situation back “in the day” is obvious in his telling of the tale of two young Belfast men, Stephen Kirkpatrick and Michael McDonnell. They were both raised in Andersonstown, a predominantly Catholic area of Belfast, by their widowed mothers. As teenagers, they fell foul of the IRA when they tried to rob a shopkeeper falsely claiming they were IRA. The IRA tarred and feathered them for a breach of their “laws.”
Following that, the RUC’s Special Branch in the form of detectives Bradford and Green, decided to recruit the hapless pair as informants. They agreed and took the money in exchange for providing useless or false information. However the detectives wised up and set out to incriminate these two young men by planting their fingerprints all over a rifle fired by the police at a Gaelic football game. This is the point when the story really lifts off as British intelligence, in the form of MI5 and a SAS Major as the MRF (Military Reaction Force), become involved in a high-stakes game of bluff and counterbluff.
The two young men become pawns in a deadly “game” played out between the MRF and Brendan McCann, a Provisional IRA commander.
The story is thrilling not only for the plot but Dillon’s characters and the setting are all superb. There is no weak link in this book. The plot is based on a true story and it shows. It is utterly feasible.
The characters are master pieces and I am particularly fond of Jimmy Carson, a neighbour and mentor to Stephen Kirkpatrick. Carson is fond of dishing out the home-spun philosophy but it is done in the most amusing way. The author would have us believe most of the Carson “homilies” spring from his character’s knowledge of a French philosopher named as Francois Bouan. [I am still unsure if Bouan is the author’s private joke as the only Bouan reference I am able to find is within the pages of Dillon’s books] Notwithstanding my aside, Jimmy Carson is the source of some really funny anecdotes including the one about a dog, a cat and a mouse. This is one of the beauties of “Irishness” - no matter how serious the situation, they can invariably find humour or the craic.
The humour is welcome at times. This is a serious and sad tale, told by a master who knows the subject and the people intimately.
An overwhelming takeaway from the book is the author at no time uses his stage to broadcast a personal political message or agenda. It is left entirely to the reader to form their own opinions about the “why’s and wherefores’” of the then current political scenario. Undoubtedly, it was a sad and tragic episode of British and Northern Irish history. This reader cannot help feeling that the “Troubles” was a kind of madness inflicted on this small part of the world.
A madness because I visited Northern Ireland on many occasions and have worked with many wonderful people from one or the other of the six counties. My personal happy experiences of both the country and its people reinforces my amazement at the madness of the “Troubles.”
Back to the book - If your thing is dirty tricks and conspiracies, black propaganda, disinformation, psychological warfare, agents and double agents, then you really can’t go wrong.
I really cannot recommend this book highly enough.
Thank you Martin Dillon and Thistle Publishing for the fresh release of this book.
I received a free electronic copy of this novel from Netgalley, Martin Dillon, and Thistle Publishing. I was under no obligation to review it. Thank you all for sharing your hard work with me.

A couple of Catholic Belfastian teens, Stephen Kirkpatrick and Michael McDonnell, are caught between England's MI5, the SAS and the IRA as they seek a safe way into adulthood in 1970's Ireland. Michael is looking for easy and highly spiced, Stephen just wants a life with his girl Bernadette and an end to the political strife he has known all his life, or barring that, start-up funds and passage for them both to the USA.

And of course politics as we all recognize them now don't play fair. This is an excellent read, fast and peopled with folks you recognize instantly. I can comfortably recommend it highly to friends and family. Thank you Thistle Publishing, for bringing this one back.

I received a free electronic copy of this novel from Netgalley, Martin Dillon, and Thistle Publishing. Thank you all for sharing your hard work with me.