1988

In the fall of 1988, the level of Irish Republican Army (IRA) violence escalated in Ulster as the IRA urban guerilla campaign morphed from fierce internecine warfare in blue-collar neighborhoods to elite upper-class targets in government, corporate board rooms and exclusive gentlemen's clubs. All evidence pointed to a retired Irish expatriate, Sean O'Neill, a retired National Security Agency (NSA) operative and former U.S. Marine officer to be the mastermind behind that tactic. O'Neill's sidekick in Vietnam and the Middle East, Gordy Tyler, was reactivated from civilian life by U.S. Naval Intelligence and loaned to NSA to go to Ireland, find O'Neill and bring him back to the USA by any means necessary, "dead or alive." O'Neill was considered to be an abrasive embarrassment by NSA and the U.S. Government.

Tyler and another NSA agent, Bridget Mahoney, who has loyalty and agenda issues, as well as developing psychotic illusions, posed as honeymooning tourists exploring Ireland's fabled 47 shades of green. Mahoney is equal to Tyler in all things except physical size. She has her way through feminine wiles, or by ruthlessly obliterating all opposition and anyone unfortunate to be caught in the crossfire. Actually, Mahoney is a beautiful psychotic trainwreck looking for a place to happen.

After surviving a botched assassination attempt in a dark, narrow, 18th century cobblestone alley in Dublin, Tyler rejects the failed NSA mission plan, goes rogue and gets cheerfully loud in pubs throughout the picturesque villages along the Irish Republic/Ulster border. That allows O'Neill to find them when he is ready to be found, and sets up the intense collusion whereby the IRA, NSA and Scotland Yard must cooperate to prevent a massacre of innocent civilians.

Set in Fort Worth, Texas; Washington, D.C.; Dublin, Ireland; and Ulster from the storm-swept ruins of Dunluce Castle to the bloody streets of Belfast, 1988-Erin Go Kill is interwoven with international intrigue, intense personal loyalties, institutional deceptions, the excesses and aftermaths of colonial oppression, the intimate violence of sectarian warfare and its collateral victims, a budding romance between evolving adversaries, and many actual historical events in the Republic of Ireland, Ulster and England.

First-person accounts on both sides of the warring factions are accurately described to add clarity and substance. These range from frightened but determined teen-aged British soldiers guarding sand-bagged downtown barricades and remote checkpoints, grizzled Royal Ulster Constables (RUCs) patrolling the streets in military armored troop carriers sporting heavy machine guns and mortar artillery, and I...