This book was such an interesting account of the unrest between the Irish Catholics and the Protestants. It was like a history lesson for me wrapped in a kid napping. Makes clear how difficult the situation was and still to s in the area of the world. The story is with narrative so it’s more gripping than a history book. Would definitely recommend this book to others who enjoy true crime like I do. Thank you Netgalley for chance to read this one!

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for an advance copy of this book in return for an honest review.

“From award-winning New Yorker staff writer Patrick Radden Keefe, a stunning, intricate narrative about a notorious killing in Northern Ireland and its devastating repercussions.” That description is very accurate, but is just the tip of the iceberg. The story begins in December of 1972, when 38-year old Jean McConville, mother to 10 children, was dragged from her Belfast home by masked intruders and was never to be seen again. Who was responsible, and why? It would take 30 years before her bones were found, but why it happened is never explained to my satisfaction.

As a teenager in the 70’s, the evening news was filled with the horrors of war. My personal focus was more on Viet Nam, and the bombs and explosions in Ireland took second place. I must admit I had only a basic knowledge of The Troubles. The author details the history of the conflicts in Ireland, the birth of the IRA and the brutality that took place. He has done an excellent job of filling in the history of the conflict, as well as analyzing the masterminds behind the terror and the “volunteers” who carried out the acts.

This book also left me so profoundly sad. And angry. And mystified. Have we learned nothing? Will we ever learn to live in peace with each other? How do you reconcile your actions with your religion? How do people live with themselves after doing such unspeakable things? Even if you weren’t part of the abductions, bombings or just plain hatred being spewed, how do you look yourself in the mirror each morning after you have left your neighbor’s 10 young children fend for themselves after their mother’s disappearance? I guess it weighs pretty heavily, as some of the IRA volunteers participated in Boston College’s interviews of IRA members, with the contents to be released after their deaths, as a catharsis and unburdening of their souls. Others pretended they were never members.

I highly recommend this book. It appears to be very well-researched, and is an insightful and informative look into a very troubling time in Ireland’s history. It is also a book that will challenge you to look at the world around us. We haven’t learned a thing.

https://candysplanet.wordpress.com

Note: This is classified as Netgalley review. I received a free ecopy of this book from Netgalley and Doubleday Books in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

I was fortunate enough to travel abroad my freshman year of undergrad and I spent three wonderful months in Ireland. We got to travel all over the country and learn about the rich history there. It was during this trip, on a three-day jaunt to Northern Ireland, that I first learned about the Troubles—the way Ireland was broken and hurt and desperately trying to find some peace. How cities turned into war zones. How walls were put up to keep the peace—walls that are still there today.

Patrick Radden Keefe’s book was marketed as a true crime book, focusing on the murder of a mother of a 10, who was kidnapped and killed during the Troubles. No one looked for her. No one cared that she was missing. Her kids were left alone. And in the process of telling her story, Keefe discovered who killed her.

A book that brought together my deep love for both true crime and Ireland? I was sold. Naturally, lots of trigger warnings for violence, bombings, etc. While Keefe doesn’t go into graphic details, the Troubles were full of horrible violence and the book does a thorough job telling that story.

The biggest issue I had this book was honestly the marketing. It’s heavily marketed as a true crime book and it both is and isn’t. Keefe spends the bulk of the book focusing on the Troubles themselves and four of the main players that end up factoring into the disappearance and murder of Jean McConville. Very little is actually told about McConville’s story. A chapter here and there up until the very, very end, when Keefe ends up finding her killers. For a true crime book, I expected much more on McConville or a clearer connection on how these members of the IRA that Keefe spends so much time talking about relate to McConville’s disappearance.

By the time I finished the book, I knew more about those people, who were involved in McConville’s death, than I did about Jean herself, which is heartbreaking to me. While I understand that the Troubles were complicated and Keefe wants to draw attention to that, he shares so, so little about the victim. I firmly believe that true crime books should always be victim focused, giving them more attention and respect than their killers and I found some of that lacking in this book.

So in one sense, it didn’t feel like a true crime book, because there was so little focus on the actual murder. But, on the other hand, the Troubles were full of crime. There were bombings and massacres and the deaths of countless civilians. Cities were war zones in ways that I can’t even wrap my head around. Keefe pays close attention to the trauma of the Troubles, from the beginning through the present day. He shows the ways that the hurt still sits close to the surface. If you look at Northern Ireland as the victim, the book sits nicely as a true crime book.

To make a long story short, I liked the book. I think the connections between the IRA and the disappearance of McConville could have been more clear in the beginning. The book has some structural issues. But the story Keefe has to tell is an important and painful one. It’s a story that becomes more important with the uncertainty of Brexit.

If you like books about politics, history, and Ireland, pick this up. If you’re looking for an Ann Rule-esque true crime, you won’t find that here. But the story still matters and I recommend it highly for that alone.

Say Nothing ticks all the boxes of a remarkable work of nonfiction. This particular story of the political and nationalist conflict in Ireland (the Troubles) highlights a handful of spellbinding individuals whose actions changed the course of Irish history. Through meticulous reporting captivatingly relayed by investigative journalist Patrick Radden Keefe, Say Nothing offers a thrilling history lesson told through the lens of an unsolved mystery.

Murders were part and parcel of the Troubles, with more than 3,500 killed between the late 1960s and '90s. But only 16 were "disappeared"--abducted, murdered and secretly buried. Among them was Jean McConville, a 38-year-old mother of 10 when a gang of masked intruders took her from her home in Belfast in 1972. It took 30 years to recover Jean's remains.

The hows and whys of her death are spun through decades of violence, jailbreaks, movie star romance, former-felon politicians, hunger strikes, and double- and triple-agents of the IRA and British police. Most incredibly, a secret cache of IRA confessionals lies waiting in the special Treasure Room enclosure of a Boston College library. Truth is undoubtedly stranger than fiction.

Any retelling of the Troubles worth its salt is necessarily lengthy and complex. By sandwiching it between arcs on the Treasure Room, the mystery of Jean McConville and how all the secrets came unraveled, Keefe breathes new life into history. As evidenced by the nearly 100 pages of notes and secondary sources, this was no small feat. Keefe's work is both anguishing and triumphant.

STREET SENSE: The mystery of Jean McConville and how it unraveled was spellbinding. The middle was a little too detailed for my particular tastes and I lost my gumption a tiny bit. As noted above, however, it's tough to tell a down and dirty story that is so intertwined with the history of the Troubles and its various factions and participants. Understanding that, Keefe did a great job, it just resulted in a little speed-reading now and again. For those of you who love getting lost in the details, it will probably feel spot-on.

COVER NERD SAYS: I hate to admit this, but I was lured into this one by a PR statement from Gillian Flynn. I am not generally a fan of blurbs and usually ignore them, but (1) I don't see Flynn's name tossed around promoting many books and (2) it wasn't technically a blurb. This cover probably would have caught my eye regardless, minimalist lover of all things dark that I am. If anything, this cover might go a bit too stark and has a hint of the DIY look, but there's no contesting the image is compelling and makes up for what the font or spacing take away.

I love true crime, and say nothing was really interesting! I don't usually read too much in this genre, but I really enjoyed this book, and it was worth the long read

Like many working-class protestant girls in 1950's Belfast, Jean McConville left school at fourteen. She found a job as a maid for a Catholic woman, fell in love with her son and married him. When he died after a long illness, she was left depressed and bereft with a small pension, a public housing flat, a woman so self effacing that only one snapshot of her exists. Her ten children ranged in age from twenty to three, and most were home when some men knocked at her door, forced themselves in, and dragged her away as her three year old twins hung onto her skirt, screaming. The men said she'd be back in a few hours, but she was never seen again.

I expected "Say Nothing" to be more about Jean's disappearance to be more about its impact on her family, but Patrick Radden Keefe veers away to cover the story of the Troubles in Northern Ireland, the personalities and the strategies. He sticks to the Catholic point of view since this is what impacted the McConvilles.

No neighbors or friends came to the flat to see if the the children were okay and the kids stayed, waiting, until the food ran out and social services arrived. As adults, the children could not see how their sad, silent mother could have been an informant.

After the Good Friday Agreement in 1998, several historians and journalists began to collect oral histories about the Troubles, which would be held at Boston College, unheard until the speaker was dead. As time went on and participants began to die, hope grew that the fates of many disappeared during the strife would be discovered. People like Jean McConville.

The McConville family is almost a sidebar to the story, a stubborn mystery. The children do not emerge as individuals, nor does Jean ever become a real person, just that "38-year-old mother of ten" as she is often described. Are they still afraid? A lot of people are, and many involved in the Troubles suffer from remorse, grief, and PTSD. And fear.

I gave "Say Nothing" four stars because it is an excellent read, it does not deliver on the promise of raising Jean McConville from the "mother of ten" trope. We know no more about her as a human, what she did or did not do, and the impact on her shattered family.

But the discussion of the Troubles and especially the time bombs held in the Belfast Project tapes at Boston College are top rate. There is more shock and heartbreak about the Troubles still to come.

This was not what I thought it would be, but it was great in a whole different way. It was an intensely dramatic way to tell the story of true crime, war and conflict in Northern Ireland.

When the book starts it introduces Jean McConville, a 38-year-old single mother of 10, who was abducted from her home in December of 1972. She disappears and is never heard from again. Then the book randomly switches to introduce another character, Dolours Price. I kept thinking, "why am I reading about Dolours? What does she have to do with the Jean McConville's abduction?" However, as the story continues and Price's story continues, I found myself being pulled in. The author goes into the details of Price's activism and her need to fight for rights in Northern Ireland, which led to her involvement in the peaceful protest march from Belfast to Derry. This peaceful march did not have a peaceful conclusion as the marchers were beaten and brutalized by loyalists as they reached Derry. This event really changed Dolours Price's life forever and led her to become one of the most infamous IRA (Irish Republican Army) members in its history. The incident at Burntollet Bridge was so incredibly moving that I had to know how her story ends.

It turns out that to understand Jean McConville's disappearance, you really have to understand the Troubles between England and Northern Ireland. You really get to experience the result of when peaceful marches are not enough and how violence changes people. This story lets you see inside the lives of multiple IRA members, including Gerry Adams, Brendan Hughes, Dolours Price, Marian Price and others.  You also get to experience what life was life in Northern Ireland.

This book was so horrifying, and yet I could not put it down. I needed to know what happened to each and every one of the characters involved, including Jean McConville, and without giving any spoilers, there was indeed a connection between her and the IRA. I just hope Jean McConville's children can find some peace, and that there will be peace in Northern Ireland.

I wish it weren’t only February because the statement ‘this is the best book I’ve read all year’ does not carry very much weight when we still have 10 months to go. But, nonetheless, this is my reigning book of 2019. And it ended up being one of those rare cases when the book turned out so differently from what I expected, but I ended up liking it all the more for that. From the blurb I got the impression that this was going to focus on the disappearance of a woman called Jean McConville, with details about the Troubles setting the background context, but instead it’s primarily a narrative account of the Troubles which occasionally, haltingly zeroes in on McConville’s story. So it’s less true crime than it is historical nonfiction, but the final product is focused and compelling.

Say Nothing, whose title comes from a line from a Seamus Heaney poem which examines the treacherous precedent of speaking plainly about the Troubles, paints a comprehensive picture of twentieth century Belfast and introduces us to a few of the main players responsible for much of the devastation caused by the IRA – Brendan Hughes, Gerry Adams, Dolours and Marian Price, et al. Radden Keefe explores the lives and family histories and philosophies and interpersonal dynamics of these individuals and I found it refreshing that he didn’t have an interest in moralizing in his approach to this story; while I think true objectivity is probably impossible, this is about as multifaceted as it gets. Driven primarily by an interest in the human cost of the conflict, Radden Keefe turns four years of research into a richly detailed account of Northern Ireland’s fraught history, particularly examining how difficult it is to cultivate a historical record when different accounts contain conflicting information, and when everyone is afraid to speak openly about a conflict that’s officially been resolved, but is a strong force in cumulative living memory. (If you loved Milkman, or if you didn’t understand Milkman, this is such a valuable nonfiction supplement.)

Certain anecdotes and images in this book were just arresting, and I think it’s telling that the two stories that affected me the most had victims on opposite sides of the conflict. The first was about an IRA man who ordered a hit on another IRA man, whose wife he was having an affair with; the first man was sentenced to death, and Dolours Price, driving him to his execution, was struck with the thought that she could let him go, or that he could attack her and escape, but neither of those possibilities was going to happen because they both wholly accepted their devotion to the cause. The chapter ends with the flat and haunting lines “‘I’ll be seeing you Joe,’ Price said. But she knew that she wouldn’t be, and she cried the whole way home.” The second story that got under my skin was about two young British soldiers who had accidentally found themselves in the middle of an IRA funeral; because of a recent attack by loyalists, their presence was met with suspicion and they were dragged from their car and beaten, and eventually taken across the road and shot. A Catholic priest ran over and when he noticed that one of the men was still breathing, asked if anyone knew CPR, but he was met with silence from the crowd, and a photograph was captured of him kneeling over this soldier’s body and staring into the camera, his lips bloody from trying to resuscitate him.

As for the significance of Jean McConville, the mother of ten who went missing in 1972, and whose body wasn’t recovered until her bones were found on a beach in 2003: at first I did worry that this element was being shoehorned as a bizarre piece of human interest (I say ‘bizarre’ due to the little attention that’s paid to McConville and her children throughout). However, I needn’t have worried, as everything does eventually dovetail in a way that fully justifies this book’s premise. Running alongside the historical account of the Troubles, Radden Keefe introduces the reader to something called the Boston College Tapes, an aborted project in which heads of the college’s Irish History department endeavored to curate an oral history of the Troubles, to be accessed by the college’s students in future generations. Due to the fact that discussing past paramilitary activity is an incriminating act, participants in the project were granted a sort of amnesty and promised that the tapes would not be released until after the participant’s death. This promise was violated in the form of a lengthy legal battle between BC and the UK government, and ended up playing a key role in getting to the bottom of McConville’s disappearance.

While I’d first and foremost recommend Say Nothing to those with an interest in Irish history and wouldn’t dream of selling this as a true crime book, I don’t want to downplay how enthralling this was. Granted, its focus is something I already had an interest in, but what Radden Keefe brought to this narrative was a fiercely human angle, and I found this as deeply moving as it was informative.

Secret Documents, Murder, and The Troubles in Northern Ireland

A subpoena was served on Boston College in Massachusetts to get secret documents locked in the university archives. The information detailed incidents about what happened during The Troubles in Northern Ireland. Catholics and Protestants were locked in a struggle for control. Youngsters, doing the bidding of the IRA (Irish Republican Army), planted bombs and carried out murders. It was an horrific time that few outside Ireland understand.

The book opens with the abduction and murder of Jean McConville, thirty-eight-year-old mother of ten. However, this is not a true crime book. After the introduction to Jean we hear nothing more until nearly the end of the book. The intervening chapters detail the bitter conflict. We learn of terrorist activities and get to meet some of the actors, like the Price sisters and other members of the IRA. Although there are a great many characters, the book is well written and easy to follow.

I highly recommend this book. It is the history of a terrible period in Northern Ireland. Before reading it, I knew very little about The Troubles. This book paints a picture of how society was torn apart and people committed acts that haunted them for their entire lives.

I received this book from Net Galley for this review.

The Irish have fought against oppressive British rule for centuries, but for many the most interesting—and for some of us, emotionally charged—period is that known as The Troubles, which unfolded in 1969 as Irish youth, inspired by the Cuban Revolution and the Civil Rights movement in the United States, sought to carve out some rights for working people living in the North of Ireland and concluded in 1997 following the ceasefire agreement struck between Sinn Fein, which was then the political arm of the revolutionary Irish Republican Army, and the British government. Keefe’s intense, compelling narrative is the most readable that I’ve seen, and the revelations it holds affected me more deeply than any literature I’ve read since I began reviewing books five years ago. Thanks go to Net Galley and Doubleday for the review copy, which I read free and early. You can buy it tomorrow, February 26, 2019.

The history unfolds in three sections and is bookended by the quest of Jean McConville’s family to find her body and if possible, to learn who killed her and why. It’s an interesting choice given the number of dead the conflict produced, many of whom have never been found and identified, but the mystery and the ambiguity of her activities—was she merely a mother of ten as her children say, or working quietly for the IRA, or a double agent working for the British—is emblematic of the tension and secrecy maintained on both sides. We begin with Jean’s abduction in the first section, titled “The Clear, Clean, Sheer Thing,” move on to the meatiest and most tragic part of the struggle, “Human Sacrifice,” in which young hunger strikers and many others die, and conclude with “A Reckoning,” in which the ceasefire is signed and many Irish people that were involved in the guerrilla war are held accountable—and as usual, the British are not. The entire thing is carefully documented.

Keefe notes that during the 1980s there was a good deal of “ambient” support for the IRA in the US, and this I know to be true. I participated in fund raisers for humanitarian aid to the six counties during that time, and I attended a presentation by Bernadette Devlin, an iconic leader of the struggle who for some reason barely bears mention in this work. It’s my only complaint about the book.

The middle section left me shaking an in tears. I had not read Brendan Hughes’s claim about the deaths of the hunger strikers and the role almost certainly played by Gerry Adams, and it was a week before I could pick the book up again. I am still raw from it. I can recall seeing headlines in 1981 when Bobby Sands died, and at the time I was a practicing Catholic. When I saw the news, I picked up the phone and requested a special mass be held for him at my parish in the Midwestern city where I lived then. The parish priest thought it was a lovely idea but he needed the approval of the bishop. The bishop squashed it like it was a bug. There’s a metaphor in there somewhere.

The final section discusses The Belfast Project, a series of interviews done under the promise that they would not see the light of day until the subjects were dead and buried. The names of the interviewees were coded as a further layer of protection, and the whole thing was stored in the vaults of the Burns Library at Boston College, where it was believed that the British government would never lay hands on it. Never say never.

This book is a masterpiece. The writer is a journalist on the staff of The New Yorker, and this project took four years of steady effort by the author and his assistants, and a good deal of travel as well. The documentation is meticulous. Nevertheless, there are a number of details that are impossible to nail down, and the book’s title gives the reason for this. The only way to be sure a secret remains a secret is to keep your mouth shut, and that’s precisely what most of those involved in the struggle have done. A great many details that could doubtless condemn large numbers of working class Irish to lengthy prison sentences are buried with the bones of those that could have told. And although the author doesn’t explicitly say so, it’s obvious from the fate of the interview tapes that there is never any other guarantee of confidentiality; the code of silence still held to by the survivors of The Troubles has been all the protection that Irish participants have ever had. The vow to keep information private was decimated time and time again by the horrifying physical and psychological torture on the innocent and culpable alike by British jailers, none of whom will ever be brought to justice.

Those that didn’t follow this fight in real time will likely not be as shattered by the things this book holds as I was. The author paints a vivid scenario—imagine coming home and noting that there’s a British soldier in uniform, gun drawn, in the rhododendrons in the front yard, for example—and peppers the account with well-chosen quotes. The slow deaths of Irish youth held in virtual dungeons are hard to read about, but then, war stories usually are. It’s fascinating stuff, though but necessarily material for bedtime, depending on your level of sensitivity.

Highly recommended.

SAY NOTHING BY PATRICK RADDEN KEEFE BOOK REVIEW
A deep dive into the crime-ridden & tumultuous history of Northern Ireland.

WHAT HAPPENED TO JEAN?
Immediately, I need to know what happened to Jean McConville. As soon as the mother of ten is kidnapped from her home, I’m fully invested in this book. Jean’s story is terrifying & my heart breaks for her ten children.

Quickly, Keefe introduces us to the Price sisters, Marian & Dolours. We learn of their fight for an independent Ireland through their militant & dangerous behavior. Through Keefe’s writing & reporting, I’m able to understand the Price sisters are complicated. Their strongly held beliefs that Ireland should be Independent is shrouded in secrecy, murder & lies. I found them both despicable, yet I was intrigued by their devotion to their cause.

FULL OF IMPORTANT HISTORY
Get ready for the best kind of history lesson. No doubt Patrick Radden Keefe does his due diligence with Say Nothing. While reading this novel, I’m enthralled with all the details & history surrounding Northern Ireland & Great Britain. If you’re not a history or crime buff, just give it a bit. Like anything worth having, the story takes time. Keefe builds the (very true) narrative bit by bit. Before you know it, you’re fully engrossed in this time period. By the end, I’m burning through the pages.

UNCOVERING THE TRUTH
For me, the heart of the story is family & ideals. We see how the ideals of an individual group affect so many. Despite countless crimes, attacks & so many secrets, the cause of the Price sisters (& their brethren) is not successful to date.

With horrible crimes, victims can often be forgotten. We know all too well that it’s not just victims who suffer, but also their families. Readers come to know how the kidnapping of Jean changed the life of all her children in different ways. I appreciate how much time Keefe spent discussing the children of Jean McConville.

During his research, Keefe possibly solves a huge part of the Jean McConville disappearance. This is where his journalism skills shine the best. Through years of research, he’s pieced together so much. So, when looking at a particular statement, something clicks. It’s pretty amazing & you can read more about it here.

THE VERDICT
I am Really Into This book! Patrick Radden Keefe writes a historical true-crime masterpiece with Say Anything. As I’m writing this review & discussing the story with my Dad, I realize how much I learned reading this book. Say Anything is timely, enthralling & informative.

If you’re Really Into true crime, be sure to check out my reviews of I’ll be Gone in The Dark, Sons of Cain, The Stranger Beside Me & Goat Castle.

Special thanks to Patrick Radden Keefe, Doubleday & NetGalley for providing my copy in exchange for an honest & fair review.

I thought this was a True Crime novel about the murder of a mother of ten during the Troubles. And it is, but it’s so much more. The author provides a setting and background for the tragic narrative that is chilling and disturbing, fueled by the ruthlessness on both sides of the conflict. As much as I wanted to put it down, as it struck too close to home, I just couldn’t. The most excellent writing, the attention to detail, the stitching together of this crazy blood quilt to make a coherent whole is mesmerizing. I read so few non-fiction books, not for lack of interest but for time, and this one will stand out for me for years to come.

I remember watching Northern Ireland in the 1960s explode on our black and white television, the neighborhoods with their backyards and laundry lines, the outward charm and simplicity wracked by a war zone mentality, steeped in long held hatred between families and rivals. Ostensibly the labels are Protestants and Catholics, but it was never a religious war, a war of theology, but a tribal war against the ancient invader.

The True Crime, investigative aspect is most evident toward the end of the novel, as some of the IRA members begin to age and unravel, confessions and regrets accompanying the push toward peace. A fascinating story well told.

This was a fascinating account of the troubles of Nothern Ireland through the history of the disappearance of Jean McConville, a mother of ten. This book throughly covers a lot of detail from the famous characters of Gerry Adam's, the Price sisters, Brendan Hughes, and many others and their possible contribution to this and 15 other disappearances throughout this turbulent time.
I would definitely recommend it to those interested in the troubles and those into true crime.
Thank you to the publisher for providing me with this arc available through netgalley.

Patrick Radden Keefe presents his meticulously researched and eloquently written take on The Troubles in Northern Ireland in Say Nothing. By focusing on more of the true crime angle with the disappearance and murder of Jean McConville, the book draws the reader into the story instantly and never lets go.

As an American who has visited Belfast, it was difficult to grasp the enormity and proximity of the The Troubles even while I was standing amongst the history because it seemed so different than anything I had experienced before. This book, in its presentation of the McConville family and Dolours Price and the IRA as worlds different from one another and yet wholly human, makes the conflict more personal. The parallels between The Troubles and the American Civil Rights movement are astounding.

Keefe mentions that he hopes his book shows how in Belfast, history is "alive and dangerous." He certainly accomplishes this goal and I would argue that all history is primed to be alive and dangerous, but few have the talent Keefe does to ignite the spark. Excellent book, highly recommend for all readers.

Thank you to NetGalley and Doubleday for providing an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

My dad left Ireland for America in the 80s. He’s a quiet man, who has only every made offhand comments about growing up Catholic in Northern Ireland. I don’t think I ever understood the magnitude of his situation until 2 of his sisters, my aunts, came to visit us last summer. They were much more forthcoming about their childhood - growing up without running water or electricity, not being able to get good housing or jobs because they were Catholic. I was shocked. Hearing all of their recollections, I had to know more. I searched high and low for Irish history books, particularly about the Troubles. Imagine my surprise when this popped up in my email (from NetGalley)...it was just what I was looking for.

The author gives an extremely thorough account of the IRA and many of its main players. He gives context to the violence, not condoning it, but showing why people made certain horrific choices and how for some, these choices haunted them for the rest of their lives. This books only focuses on the inner workings of the IRA, with Jean McConville’s disappearance as the framework, but the author lists a ton of other books and resources with information about other aspects of the Troubles and Irish history for further reading.

Say Nothing is a solid overview of such a difficult time in Irish history that still has effects today. I left it feeling a lot more informed about Northern Ireland and the reasons behind the decades of violence. It’s a great book for anyone looking for a comprehensive look at the IRA’s place in the Troubles

I did not finish this book. I tried. I really tried. The premise of the book got me interested in reading it as it was sold as intriguing and mysterious abduction of a mother in Northern Ireland with political, religious and historical significance. I was prepared for more of a mystery, but instead it is a straight up history book. Incredibly well written, but I felt like it was a misleading hook for reading this book. If you are interested in Irish history, you will probably love this book, but it is not what I thought it would be and I read well over half of the book.

Say Nothing is a true crime story more compelling than any fictional tale. Jean McConville was a 38-year-old widow with ten children in a poor neighborhood in Belfast. One night she was abruptly taken from her home by the IRA, in front of her terrified children, Mistakenly blamed for passing information to British soldiers, she was never seen again. This is also the story of Dolours Price, a young Catholic woman swept up in the frenzy of IRA violence. The two women's stories converge by way of a series of coincidences and heartbreaking misunderstandings. The ramifications of McConville's murder (her bones were eventually found and identified) are still being felt today as those responsible only recently revealed the shocking series of events that led to the murder of an innocent mother. Patrick Radden Keefe's is a natural story teller who has written an important addition to the history of this tragic time in Irish history.

In telling the true story of the 1972 disappearance of a mother of ten in Northern Ireland, Patrick Radden Keefe presents a well researched, comprehensive review of the “Troubles”, some of the main characters involved, their history with the republican movement and the atrocities on both sides. The narration takes the reader up to current times and notes some of the implications of this history in view of Brexit.

I found the book riveting and, despite a full cast of characters, easy to follow
There is so much I never realized about this situation….this is a MUST read.

Radden Keefe, through what was evidently pain-staking research, is able to distill a very complex conflict down into a relatable story by focusing on the murder of Jean McConville in 1972. Readers get to know those involved, their motivations, and the consequences (for everyone, even today) of the actions taken by the IRA in the 1970s and 80s. Well done!

I was lucky enough to take a trip to Belfast in November of 2017 - knew nothing of the city and, having been born in the 80s, only hearing that Northern Ireland had some "Troubles" between Catholics and Protestants. Throughout my stay, locals warmly welcomed us to the city, but would off-handedly mention things like "That was the most bombed building during the Troubles" and then continue on with the conversation. A bus tour took us along the Peace Wall and through neighborhoods known for their murals. However, no one was able to really convey to us tourists what it was like to live through the conflict - on either side. THIS BOOK PUT ALL OF THAT IN PERSPECTIVE.

Ask anyone you know about "the Troubles" and you may get some info on the IRA bombing places in England, and killing people. What you WON'T get is the history behind the Troubles and that that history goes almost back to the BEGINNING of Ireland as we know it (aka the British takeover of the island). I started reading this book 2 weeks before my daughters latest dance competition, so while there I was finishing it up, so I did some off the wall questioning, and found that even among Irish descended Americans, there is a severe lack of knowledge about the background and WHY the Irish SO identified with Martin Luther King Jr and the civil rights movement. Speaking with people who recently emigrated from Ireland, there was a whole different take on the Troubles and one that I could actually understand, having read THIS book!

This book is a LITERAL eye-opener! While it focuses on the 'modern' Troubles, aka 50's onward, with focus on 70's and 80's, the background history really allows the reader to truly understand, for the first time, exactly what led up to the greater divide and WHY there seemed to be only one resolution-violence. And U2's song "Sunday Bloody Sunday" finally made total sense to me as well! By weaving biographies and historical accounts into the tale, Patrick gives the reader both sides of the fence, and more importantly, why there was no coming together, until the violence had reached a zenith. How the IRA faction became Sinn Féin was something I had never understood, until reading this book either.

Patrick really does an brilliant job in letting the reader make up their mind as to who was right, or who was wrong, and if their reasonings were justified, or not. You may end up seeing both sides and realizing much was inevitable. And while the story focus of the disappearance of Jean McConville and her children is the front runner of the book, Patrick weaves in the history of what lead up to it, and the personal involvements become as gripping as the disappearance itself. It is truly a book you do not want to put down, and that you can get lost in for hours and hours!

By the time you finish, you may well feel you've been though an entire semester course in Irish history! My poor 11 yr old, she has no idea yet that one of her electives in high school is going to be Irish History and the Correlations between American History! And I'm pretty sure THIS book is going to be her foundation text! As a current representative, and future Queen (odds on), for an Irish Parade Krewe, as well as an Irish dancer, she needs to be able to speak as to why there are actually MORE people with Irish blood in America, than in Ireland, that just quoting 'famine and immigration'. She needs a clearer understanding of WHY American immigration was seen as such a better choice (we had already defeated the British after all and achieved a Bill of Rights that has withstood the test of time), than staying in a homeland they loved. And in reading this book, she will also get a better understanding of AMERICAN civil rights, and what went right and wrong!

If you are of Irish descent, or love history, this is a MUST read book! You may find yourself urging everyone YOU know to read it too! Do NOT miss this amazing book!