Free Audio Book : Say Nothing, By Patrick Radden Keefe

The kidnapping of Jean McConville was one of the most infamous incidents in the brutal conflict known as The Troubles. Everyone in the vicinity was aware that the I.R.A. was to blame. However, in an atmosphere of dread and suspicion, no one dared to mention it. In 2003, five years after a treaty established a fragile peace in Northern Ireland, a set of human remains was found on a beach. McConville’s children recognized their mother when they were informed that a blue safety pin was fastened to the dress–with so many children, she always had it ready for diapers or torn clothes.

Patrick Radden Keefe’s captivating book on the harsh conflict in Northern Ireland and its aftermath uses the McConville case as a springboard for the story of a society torn apart by a violent guerrilla war, a war whose repercussions have never been addressed. The savage violence scarred not only individuals like the McConville children but also I.R.A. members embittered by a peace that fell significantly short of the objective of a united Ireland, leaving them questioning whether the killings they perpetrated were not justified acts of war, but mere murders.

From radical and reckless I.R.A. terrorists such as Dolours Price, who, when she was barely past her teens, was already planting explosives in London and marking informers for execution, to the ruthless I.R.A. strategist known as The Dark, to the espionage and underhanded tactics of the British Army, to Gerry Adams, who brokered the peace but betrayed his hardcore comrades by denying his I.R.A. history–Say Nothing evokes a world of passion, treachery, revenge, and sorrow.