In the final part of his trilogy exploring "the Troubles" in Northern Ireland, Peter Taylor reveals for the first time the full extent of the British state's thirty-year "war" against the IRA, and the top-secret contacts with the Provisionals that lay behind the road to peace.
'Provos' and 'Loyalists' told the story of the conflict from the point of view of the Republicans and Loyalists; now it can be told, with all its tragic twists and turns, from the British perspective. For the first time, undercover soldiers, Special Branch officers and a top MI6 operative step out of the shadows and tell their astonishing stories along with soldiers of the regular army and the Whitehall mandarins who helped shape policy from Westminster.
It is a gripping account of how naive optimism and tragic misunderstandings turned into steely determination on all sides. In deepening, broadening and amplifying what was already a fascinating and complex story in the three-part television series, Peter Taylor has written the hardest hitting and most coherent account of the thirty-year "war" yet published.
