Really enjoyed this novel that hooked me in right from the start. Enjoyed getting to know maire/ Anne Marie and seeing her character development

I will give this book 3 stars

The plot was good and engaging but I found it a little slow going
The characters were readable but I found there was too many of them and at times hard to keep track
Some of the characters thoughts and actions I felt a little unbelievable
All in All and decent read but wish I had felt a little more engaged with it.

What a thrilling read!!! I love spy thrillers, and loved reading more about the war and conflict between the British and Irish people. Recommended.

Maire Anne McCartney is a teenage in Belfast in the early 1990’s. Her brother Martin is an IRA commander, her boyfriend Joseph his right-hand man. Maire on the other hand is intelligent with the chance of university. She can escape this life if she can just keep her nose out of trouble. When Joseph asks her to help out on a job she’s reluctant, but he’s persistent. Needless to say things don’t go according to plan.

Twenty-six years later Maire has reinvented herself as Anne-Marie Gallagher, a human rights lawyer in London and prospective Parliamentary candidate. She wins the election and a bright future beckons as she’s tipped for greater things, when a body has just been unearthed in an unmarked grave. Suddenly her past is coming back to haunt her.

Ultimately it is also one about human nature, conscience and guilt, and betrayal. I think it is fair to say we all have skeletons in our closet, it is just some have buried them deeper than other people.

Intrigued by the description, I requested this ARC on NetGalley. Even though the writing style is neat and flows well, it took me about a quarter of the book to feel somewhat comfortable with the different timelines and the great number of characters involved. I was also a bit put off by the lengthy descriptive parts.

I thought this plot was a good idea and very much timely, indeed. However, I never managed to get into it. I’d simply say that the complex political thriller made for an intricate plot that would probably render well in a film format. Knowing that it was written by a TV producer, it would make sense.

Thankyou to NetGalley, HQ and Simon Berthon for the opportunity to read an advanced readers copy of A Secret Worth Killing For in return for my honest opinion.
I found the book to be a good read, but it didn't grab me whereby I had to read it in one sitting. I found the storyline to be very slow going in parts and predictable.

Anne-Marie is an ambitious politician with quite a few skeletons in her closet. Not exactly unusual for a politician. Her secrets are buried all the way back in Ireland in the midst of the Troubles. The story moves from past to the present and back again, as some of those secrets begin to surface and threaten to destroy the new life and identity she has built for herself.

Although Anne-Marie is portrayed as the unsuspecting and innocent victim of political machinations and spy games, I find that perspective hard to swallow. The whole set-up of the honey-trap suggests at the very least a subconscious awareness of what would happen, especially considering her family and their involvement in the IRA.

The most interesting aspect of the story is the question of guilt. Anne-Marie doesn’t seem to feel as if she is complicit in any way. One could argue that her role in the honey-trap, which leads to the death of a man, is what hardens her and makes her less empathetic or does her family loyalty and politics play a bigger role in her life than she lets on?

To me Anne-Marie reads as a woman fully aware of her actions and the consequences of said actions. In a way her ambitions and her almost instinctive play for power after the successful election is indicative of her true nature and personality.

I also think it is a fairly common assumption that women are less likely to be ruthless leaders, killers and in positions of power, when it comes to crime or terrorism. A fatal mistake I might add. There is this stereotypical misconception that we are less likely to be cruel, brutal and able to make life and death decisions.

Regardless of the truth all of the above still applies to the situation, so I suppose in the end it is a question of whether everything is fair game when we are at war. If that is the case then why do we put war criminals on trial? Are some acts of murder deemed not to be a crime, depending on the circumstances, the conflict and the person who committed them? It’s food for thought at the very least.

Berthon makes an interesting political point and one about human rights with this story, regardless of whether it is intentional or not. It also speaks to the nature of politicians, the omnipotence of secret military and police operations, and human nature in general. The author takes a snapshot of the events during that violent period in our history and manages to place the blame where it belongs, which is firmly on both sides.

It’s a gripping venture into the world of politics, political skirmishes, clandestine operations and history. Ultimately it is also one about human nature, conscience and guilt, and betrayal. I think it is fair to say we all have some skeletons in our closet, some of us have just buried them deeper than other people.

I am not a fan of political thrillers but I liked this book. It's told between alternate past and present timelines and was easy to read. It also gives a bit of a history over IRA so if you are into Irish politics or recent history you might be interested.
One think I didn't like in the novel was the romance element but would still recommend this book to those who like John Le Carre books or similar style authors.

Maire Anne McCartney is a teenage in Belfast in the early 1990’s. The Troubles are still very much a fact of life, though there are whispers of peace talks in the air. Her brother Martin is a firebrand IRA commander, her boyfriend Joseph his right-hand man. They are both very much in the hardline, anti-peace talks camp. Maire on the other hand is intelligent with the chance of university. She can escape this life if she can just keep her nose out of trouble. When Joseph asks her to help out on a job she’s reluctant, but he’s persistent. Needless to say things don’t go according to plan.

Fast forward twenty-six years and Maire is now Anne-Marie Gallagher, a human rights lawyer in London and prospective Parliamentary candidate. She wins election and is offered a junior ministerial post. A bright future beckons as she’s tipped for greater things. But a body has just been unearthed in an unmarked grave in Ulster while someone from her past makes contact.

The novel proceeds from here in alternating chapters, some in the past some in the present. The chapters in the past are to me the stronger. We follow Maire in Dublin where she’s now studying; she meets a young man, a fellow student and falls in love. But is he all he claims to be? And what of her brother and Joseph who might well be watching over her? In the present, Anne-Marie is almost an entirely different person: glamorous, sophisticated and supremely confidant, yet always afraid her past might catch up with her.

In many ways this is a great book, Maire, the younger version of the book’s protagonist is an extremely convincing character; Anne-Marie is less likeable, but then that might well have been the intention, for she has honed her armour. It keeps the reader guessing pretty much to the end: is Maire/Anne-Marie an innocent victim or was she more involved in the dark events of her past than she lets on? Is she an agent of the IRA, a Trojan horse penetrating the establishment? Was she, wittingly or otherwise, an agent of the British state, used to destroy the anti-agreement faction of the IRA.

That said, the plot is not a little unrealistic. I can’t really say how without divulging spoilers but while I enjoyed this novel immensely, I did feel that the expense and effort the author portrayed UK intelligence agencies going to protect their assets, even years after they had outgrown their use, did not ring true. Numerous former IRA men have complained in recent years that the British state, rather than providing for them, had abandoned them to their fate (Raymond Gilmour, Martin McGartland, to name just two). Obviously, we only have their word for this and as self-confessed former terrorists some might treat their comments with a pinch of salt. But in A Secret Worth Killing the author portrays the state as going to extravagant efforts that just stretched credulity.

Having made this critique however, I must say I read this novel in a matter of days, I really did enjoy it that much. The author is a skilled writer, so much so that even the aforementioned incredulity didn’t really spoil it for me.