Say Nothing

A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland

De: Patrick Radden Keefe

Narrado por: Matthew Blaney

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • NOW AN FX LIMITED SERIES STREAMING ON HULU • NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD WINNER • From the author of Empire of Pain—a stunning, intricate narrative about a notorious killing in Northern Ireland and its devastating repercussions.

One of The New York Times’s 20 Best Books of the 21st Century • A Kirkus Reviews Best Nonfiction Book of the Century • A Los Angeles Times Best Nonfiction Book of the Last 30 Years

"Masked intruders dragged Jean McConville, a 38-year-old widow and mother of 10, from her Belfast home in 1972. In this meticulously reported book—as finely paced as a novel—Keefe uses McConville's murder as a prism to tell the history of the Troubles in Northern Ireland. Interviewing people on both sides of the conflict, he transforms the tragic damage and waste of the era into a searing, utterly gripping saga." —New York Times Book Review

"Reads like a novel. . . . Keefe is . . . a master of narrative nonfiction. . . . An incredible story."—Rolling Stone

A Best Book of the Year: The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, TIME, NPR, and more!

Jean McConville's abduction was one of the most notorious episodes of the vicious conflict known as The Troubles. Everyone in the neighborhood knew the I.R.A. was responsible. But in a climate of fear and paranoia, no one would speak of it. In 2003, five years after an accord brought an uneasy peace to Northern Ireland, a set of human bones was discovered on a beach. McConville's children knew it was their mother when they were told a blue safety pin was attached to the dress--with so many kids, she had always kept it handy for diapers or ripped clothes.

Patrick Radden Keefe's mesmerizing book on the bitter conflict in Northern Ireland and its aftermath uses the McConville case as a starting point for the tale of a society wracked by a violent guerrilla war, a war whose consequences have never been reckoned with. The brutal violence seared not only people like the McConville children, but also I.R.A. members embittered by a peace that fell far short of the goal of a united Ireland, and left them wondering whether the killings they committed were not justified acts of war, but simple murders.

From radical and impetuous I.R.A. terrorists such as Dolours Price, who, when she was barely out of her teens, was already planting bombs in London and targeting informers for execution, to the ferocious I.R.A. mastermind known as The Dark, to the spy games and dirty schemes of the British Army, to Gerry Adams, who negotiated the peace but betrayed his hardcore comrades by denying his I.R.A. past--Say Nothing conjures a world of passion, betrayal, vengeance, and anguish.

Gritty but essential

If you are interested at all in the N Ireland troubles then this is the book for you. Using some specific cases and IRA protagonists it travels much of the history of the North since the late 60s in a gritty non sparing way. The reading is excellent, and in the real deal NI vernacular.

Compelling historical journalism of the Troubles

Not sure why it is advertised as a murder mystery when it is much more of a history. It also has a major flaw, which the author admits in his notes—while detailing IRA violence, barely any mention of loyalist terrorism and British state violence. But very well written and gripping for someone relatively new to the history of the times.

Riveting

Rarely are a narrative and a narrator so meant for each other that is seems like the book is reading itself aloud, but this recording achieves that state of seamless storytelling. The story of a single mysterious murder of a mother of ten during "the Troubles" in Northern Ireland in the 1970s, the reporting slowly teases out the complicated tangle of political beliefs, patriotism, personal loyalities and resentments that surrounded the killing. Blaney is equally good whether he is reading factual information or inhabiting the many tortured souls of the cast of characters. Absolutely riveting.

Not the whole story

This was an outstanding account. I had hoped that it would also have recounted the plots and nefarious deeds of the Loyalists and the British military forces, but that was outside the scope of his book.

Stunning in all respects

This book is absolutely stunning piece of work. The narrative is multi-layered and the subject matter is deeply researched. Read it!