Book review: The Hunted

By DOUGLAS OSLER
Published on Saturday 21 January 2012 00:00

THIS story about an IRA terrorist, Tom Costello, explores the contradictions we are familiar with in other prominent terrorist figures – or freedom fighters.

It opens with a dramatic account of the ambush of a British army patrol in Donegal in 1919. Sheltering in a wood in pouring rain, one of the IRA men ruminates that they are fighting “to live in a country where the heavens drown us every day”. The death of soldiers is Costello’s business and a matter for rejoicing, but his favourite younger cousin is killed in the ambush. The hard, trained fighter has also been a gentle mentor to his young relative.

The pace of the opening chapter is maintained throughout and makes for an absorbing read. Michael Collins, the IRA legend, chooses Tom for a special project and again he is torn between the two sides of his character because his mother is dying. He visits her and nurses her, then misses her funeral in order to complete his mission. These challenges make Costello a complex and attractive character and the reader is likely to warm to him.

Although the story is fiction, the context is well researched and convincing. Michael Connolly is of course a real life character as is his prime target, General Sir John Maxwell, who suppressed the Easter Rising of 1916 and ruthlessly executed its leaders. Costello is sent to Glasgow to hunt him down. In due course Costello returns to Ireland on a mission of his own and the reader is faced with an unexpected ending.

Altogether, this is a fine piece of historical fiction.

The Hunted

By Paul Cuddihy

Capercaille Books 318pp, £8.99

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