SAY NOTHING by Patrick Radden Keefe

Perhaps the depth of emotions that gave rise to sectarian conflict in Northern Ireland can never be adequately narrated, but some of the events that happened during the troubles can. Mr. Keefe does this by unfolding stories of IRA front-liners Brendan Hughes and Dolours Price, and politico Gerry Adams, around the 1972 disappearance of thirty eight year old mother of ten Jean McConville. Youthful deeds of Hughes and Price are presented, unsparingly, as are the ravages of time that overtake them as their aging selves confront their pasts. Gerry Adams’s portrait is complex: A young revolutionary who untethers his role in the struggle away from his violent comrades to pursue a political solution. Yet the centerpiece of the story is the whodunit around Jean McConville and the heinous crime that befell her, and the tragic consequences for her orphaned children. Still officially unsolved, the murder has been reexamined in recent years with information subpoenaed from a secret archive of interviews of IRA and loyalist participants in the troubles that was kept in the “Treasure Room” in Boston College’s grand, neo-gothic library. Can academic intentions to preserve the truth for future generations shield it from prosecution?