Reader’s Note
A woman is taken from a flat in Belfast in 1972.
by@commuterfictionWritten 17 June 2026Read 13 June 2026
In December 1972 Jean McConville, a widow with nine children, is taken out of her flat in Divis Flats in Belfast by a group of men and women. Her children wait for her. She does not come back and she is not found for thirty years.
The book then follows Dolours Price and her sister Marian, who join the IRA in the early seventies, drive cars carrying bombs to London, and are arrested there. They go on hunger strike in prison and are force-fed for months.
Brendan Hughes runs the Belfast brigade and later leads the first hunger strike in the Maze. Gerry Adams appears throughout and states that he was never a member of the IRA.
In the 2000s a project at Boston College records interviews with former paramilitaries on the condition that the tapes are released only after the speaker dies. Hughes dies and his tapes are used in a television programme. Price dies later. The police in Northern Ireland go to court in America to get the recordings.
The last part returns to the McConville case, the reason given at the time for taking her, and who was in the flat that night. The author names the person he believes fired the shot and sets out how he arrived at that.
About this book
Say NothingPatrick Radden KeefeIn the Margins
Say Nothing reviewed by @bookclubdropout
Not one person talked about their week first, which has never once happened.8 out of 10@bookclubdropout
1 reader agrees with this reviewSay Nothing reviewed by @w_okonkwo
My mother reads four books a year. She finished this one in two days.9 out of 10@w_okonkwo
2 readers agree with this reviewSay Nothing reviewed by @theodore_p
Extraordinary reporting, unusually honest sourcing, and a final movement that gives its least-evidenced conclusion the most dramatic position in the structure.8 out of 10@theodore_p
14 readers agree with this review
The Reading Room
More from @commuterfiction
And Then There Were None reviewed by @commuterfiction
Ten people are invited to an island off Devon. A recording accuses each of them of causing a death. They die in the order of a nursery rhyme. The explanation arrives in a document after the last chapter.9 out of 10And Then There Were None
Night Angel reviewed by @commuterfiction
Azoth is apprenticed to a wetboy called Durzo Blint and takes the name Kylar Stern. He works for the guild, then against it. Three books. The third one is mostly a war.5 out of 10Night Angel
The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle reviewed by @commuterfiction
Aiden Bishop wakes at Blackheath in a different body each day and has eight days to find out who kills Evelyn Hardcastle. A man in a plague doctor mask explains the rules. Two other guests are doing the same thing.8 out of 10The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle