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Someone in Pakistan is killing the members of a new CIA intelligence unit that is trying to buy peace with America’s enemies. It falls to Sophie Marx, a young CIA officer with a big chip on her shoulder, to figure out who’s doing the killing and why. Her starting point is Alphabet Capital, the London hedge fund that has been providing cover for this secret operation, but the investigation soon widens to include the capitals of the Middle East and the cruel hills of South Waziristan.

Sophie thinks she has the backing of her hard-nosed boss, Jeffrey Gertz, and his genial mentor at headquarters, Cyril Hoffman. In addition, she gets help from the well-mannered lieutenant general heading Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate. But the closer Sophie gets to her quarry, the more she realizes that nothing in this gallery of mirrors is quite what it seems. This is a theater of violence and retribution, in which the last act is one that Sophie could not have imagined.

David Ignatius has written a disturbing and compelling novel where the price of unchecked government is paid in blood, and peace can be bought only through betrayal.

Editorial Review

[C]ontinues his series of top-notch CIA thrillers with this fast-paced new entry…. Ignatius writes with authority and skill about a shadow world in which nothing is as it seems and money is power. This may be fiction, but in the end the reader will be struck by how feasible the story really is…. A terrific, believable novel about the intersection of politics, ethics and finance. (Kirkus Reviews)

Truth Mirrors Fiction In Pakistan’s ‘Bloodmoney’

NPR Book Review – May 20, 2011 (Excerpt)

“Americans did not like lying to others,” David Ignatius writes in Bloodmoney. “It made them uncomfortable. Their specialty was lying to themselves.”

Lying — to everyone, really — is the theme of his new espionage novel, set in present-day Pakistan. In the book, a Pakistani official asks whether Americans are conducting covert operations on Pakistani soil. And, as truth is so often stranger than fiction, it’s a subject that has come under much scrutiny in the weeks since al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden was killed in a covert operation in Abbottabad, Pakistan.

“When I wrote the book, I knew that there were unauthorized, undisclosed CIA operations in Pakistan,” Ignatius tells Morning Edition host Steve Inskeep. “Anybody who spends any time covering this beat as I do finds that out.”

Ignatius — who is a foreign affairs journalist — became curious about how one would go about conducting such a covert operation from the U.S. The more he thought about it, he says, the more it seemed like a metaphor for the relationship between the U.S. and Pakistan: “Each of us sneaking up on the other. [The U.S.] not trusting the Pakistanis, they not trusting us. Each … having good reason for the mistrust.”

Ordinarily, American operatives in Pakistan would collaborate with the local intelligence agency, because in theory, Pakistan is an ally. But in the novel — and in real life — if it appears that the local intelligence agency won’t cooperate, American operatives will simply fly under the radar. [Read the full article...]

Book World: Dan Fesperman reviews David Ignatius’s ‘Bloodmoney’

The Washington Post Book Review – May 29, 2011 (Excerpt)

Shortly after the slam-bang finish to “Bloodmoney,” David Ignatius offers in his acknowledgments the disclaimer that has become as common to espionage novels as code names and femmes fatales: “This is a work of fiction, and the characters, events, and institutions have no connection with actual ones.”

Plenty of readers will react to that claim with a nudge and a wink. Yeah, right, David. We know you have to say that for the lawyers, but c’mon, which botched CIA op is this really based on? Or is his plot, perhaps, unfolding even now in the rocky hills of Pakistan and Afghanistan, just beyond reach of the daily headlines?

Such is the strength of the authenticity that Ignatius, a Washington Post columnist, manages to instill in his eighth spy novel. His timing isn’t bad, either, considering that in Pakistan the diplomatic dust is still settling from the raid that killed Osama bin Laden. For better and for worse, you emerge from its pages as if from a top-level security briefing — confident that you have been let in on the deepest secrets, yet also feeling a bit distant from the participants, who tend to hold you at arm’s length even at their most intimate moments. [Read the full article...]

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Queen of Misfortune

A Lady Jane Grey Novel by Peter Carroll

A Love Story of Almost Shakespearean Dimension!

Queen Of Misfortune is the fictional story of Lady Jane Grey as told by her beloved tutor, John Aylmer. At the time of her execution a stranger is recorded to have assisted her when, blind folded, she lost her way upon the scaffold. Was it the same ‘stranger’ who was also recorded to have visited her when she was imprisoned in the Tower? Little is known of this unfortunate girl who was beheaded for treason in the 16^th Century. She was only 16. She is omitted from the list of monarchs but was actually queen for nine days. Author Peter Carroll, in his novel, follows John Aylmer’s close relationship with Jane as her tutor and later, as she grows up, her lover. [More...]

Available at Amazon.Com, Amazon.co.uk, Barnes & Noble, and any other good bookstore.

The Bleeding Hills - A Novel by Wilfried F. Voss

During the research for my book “The Bleeding Hills” I stumbled upon the intriguing story of one charismatic character, British Captain Robert Nairac, an undercover agent active during the Irish troubles (For more references see the hyperlinks at the end of this article). While Irish republicans consider him a butcher, and the British Army calls him a war hero, they all share the view that “he was strange” – to use a mild expression.

First of all, after studying various articles on the life and death of Robert Nairac, I have come to the conclusion that Nairac was driven by a death wish, a point that may not be disputed by many of those who knew him. My next conclusion may be, however, far more controversial. After applying a simple method of studying behavioral patterns and comparing it to recent as well as historical cases, I have come to the personal conclusion that Captain Robert Nairac was either gay and/or the victim of sexual abuse during his childhood.

Before I go into further details let me make a statement to counter some potential accusations such as smearing the memory of a British soldier on one end or discrimination of gay rights at the other. I strongly support the view that homosexuality is not a mental disorder. In the same sense, a person’s sexual orientation is not a matter of choice; individuals have no more choice about being homosexual than heterosexual. I am heterosexual, but I accept homosexuality as a different form of life style.

My conclusion that Robert Nairac was gay is still a theory and I am far from trying to cast a blame of any sort; my mere intention was to find an understanding of Nairac’s irrational behavior. An irrational behavior is not necessarily a typical gay feature, but the development of a homosexual identity is a complex and often difficult process, especially in an environment that is either ignorant of or openly hostile towards homosexuality (as much can be assumed of the British armed forces during the 1970′s). I believe, Nairac, during the years before his death, had trouble dealing with the so-called second phase of “coming out”. The first phase, the internal coming out, is the realization that one is open to same-sex relationships. The second phase involves one’s decision to come out to others, e.g. family, friends, and/or colleagues, which would have been a daunting task for Nairac considering the times and society he lived in. He had to deal with social isolation, the feeling that he was different from peers, feeling guilty about his sexual orientation, worrying about the responses from family and loved ones, fearing discrimination, and the fear of being rejected and harassed by others.

Nairac has been described as being highly intelligent, cocky at times, being a loner, but nevertheless liked the limelight, not a Smiley figure content to stay in the shadows, was instilled in his psyche with a kind of romantic intensity, single-minded and charismatic. He went to Oxford to study medieval and military history and here he showed the first signs of standing out from the crowd. He kept a trained hawk in his bedroom and wore a Grenadier Guards uniform during exams (Michael Jackson comes to mind). After Oxford Nairac attended the Sandhurst military academy, and while most soldiers tried to avoid the province, Nairac volunteered to serve in Northern Ireland. A colleague described him as having “another element which made me think that I couldn’t quite trust the guy or begin to work him out.” There are many more, very similar comments about Nairac, indicating a great deal of ignorance on behalf of the sources, which is understandable considering that at today’s times we are much more familiar with lesbians, gays, and bi-sexuals than 1970′s Europe.

Nairac also showed a tendency towards the flamboyant. He was seen heading out on patrol, just on his own, parading through the streets of Belfast, wearing a cowboy hat, trainers, and a pump-action shotgun, which is, needless to say, against British military code. The recklessness of his actions must be seen under the aspect that he, in his capacity as an undercover agent, had been frequenting local IRA or loyalist bars. That was also the case the night before his lone parade and it took place in the same neighborhood (I am reminded of the movie Die Hard With A Vengeance where Bruce Willis wears a sign “I hate N…” in the middle of Harlem). Talking about a death wish. As reporter Eamann O’Neill of the Esquire put it, “To describe this as reckless would be generous. Perhaps Nairac simply thought he was different, that the normal rules didn’t apply to him … that he had ruled himself out as a target. Perhaps he was working to a secret agenda. Perhaps he was out of control.” I say, perhaps he, the Roman Catholic, felt guilty about his sexual orientation and was looking for punishment.

Nairac has often been compared to another British war hero who had displayed a similar strange and self-destructive behavior. This man was Thomas Edward Lawrence, most famously known as Lawrence of Arabia. Both men, Nairac and Lawrence, are considered war heroes, yet showed a pattern of irregular behavior, even a death wish. Some historians had suspected that Lawrence was gay, especially since he had once written that he did not find homosexuality morally wrong, but nevertheless distasteful. Like Nairac he was looking for punishment; he hired people to whip him. Many photographs show Lawrence wearing an Arab garb, which can also be seen as an affiliation with the flamboyant.

There are two other, very famous examples of gay people who went through the same process as Nairac, ironically at the same time and in the same country, however, with a less destructive tendency. Those two examples are Elton John (born 1947) and Freddy Mercury (born 1946) – Note: Nairac was born in 1948.  Let’s recap some of Nairac’s properties: Highly intelligent, cocky, liked the limelight, romantic intensity, charismatic. The same attributes apply to Elton John and Freddy Mercury, who both had the luxury of coming out in an environment where homosexuality was increasingly accepted as a different form of lifestyle. They both had their difficulties, though, going through the phases of coming out. Elton John, for instance, married a German woman in 1984, until, after the divorce four years later, he came out as gay. Freddy Mercury had a long-term relationship with a girlfriend before he started sexual relationships with other men. Both men went through phases of flamboyant public display. On a side note, Mercury always desribed himself as an introvert in private life. The extravert personality came only out during his performances.

Still, features like being highly intelligent, cocky, liking the limelight, owning a romantic intensity, and being charismatic does not provide enough evidence for homosexuality. However, add to this the typical features during the ”coming out” phase such as social isolation (Nairac has been described as a loner) and a tendency towards depression, even suicide. In his article titled “shadow man” Eamann O’Neill quotes a former high-ranking military source as saying, “It’s simple: Nairac didn’t just stick his head into the lion’s mouth – that wouldn’t have been enough for him. Instead, he had to go and stick it right up the lion’s arse.”

During his duty in Northern Ireland, especially between 1974 and 1977, the year he was killed, Nairac has been accused of planning and/or executing a considerable number of shootings and bombings targeted against Republicans and Loyalists alike. In 1974 Nairac partnered with an SAS man, Julian “Tony” Ball, and it is said that Nairac “was going out with Ball in the evenings, shooting Catholics one night and Protestants the next.” In military terms this irrational pattern could be explained as “working the enemy”, but these men were simply out of control and in the summer of 1975, on military orders, Nairac and Ball were split up. Ball died a few years later in a car accident, while Nairac’s self-destructive behavior seemed to have amplified after the forced break-up. Another movie comes to mind, Brokeback Mountain, where Jake Gyllenhall’s character, Jack Twist, is killed, because in the end he took too many chances. Like Jack Twist in the movie, Robert Nairac took too many chances in real life and that got him killed eventually.

There is still a great deal of speculation regarding the exact circumstances of Nairac’s abduction and killing and I would like to add another aspect to the abduction part. Let’s first look at some details that are widely agreed on: 1. Nairac displayed a behavior, including his cockiness, that rubbed some people the wrong way, 2. The men Nairac ran into were not IRA men, and 3. The men who beat and abducted him did not know who he was. Nairac’s killing was a far cry from a military-style execution and IRA seniors were furious about the circumstances of Nairac’s killing. There are speculation that the IRA themselves had turned over the suspects to the Garda and RUC. My conclusion is that Nairac’s abduction, at least initially, had nothing to do with the view that a spy was caught in the act. Nairac, intentionally or not, did provoke a brawl in the Three Steps Inn, which resulted in a severe beating in the parking area, his abduction and consequently his killing. The cause of the initial brawl is unknown to this day, but it may be that Nairac had simply provoked people with his cocky behavior. After all, it was almost closing time at the pub and nearly everybody, including Nairac, was drunk. In the worst case scenario it may even be that Nairac, drunk as he was, went too far and actually hit on one of the men. The last scenario would explain the intensity of the beating.

While I have made the case that Captain Robert Nairac was gay – because his behavior definitely points in that direction – I could not explain his violent side, which was the only atypical feature on Nairac. The only other explanation would be sexual abuse during his childhood and, until now, I had no evidence supporting this theory. Sexual abuse could mean that Nairac was unable to have sexual relationships with women or even maintain a long-lasting homosexual relationship. Sexual abuse would also explain his relationship with Julian “Tony” Ball, which was not necessarily a sexual relationship, but a partnership to commit violent acts for the sake of violence. Ball has been described as “a nasty bit of work — a psychotic … He bit his fingernails down to the white half-moons and was living on his nerves continually, possibly taking drugs.”

On May 21, 2009 I read an article in the Washington Post titled Pupils Abused For Decades in Irish Schools and there is no connection to the Nairac case. It did, however, trigger a thought and I started looking for similar abuse cases in Great Britain. Imagine my surprise that the most recently discovered case of sexual abuse took place at the Ampleforth College. Ampleforth College in North Yorkshire, England, is the largest private Catholic mixed boarding school in the United Kingdom. According to The Guardian (November 18, 2005), “For three decades between 1966 and 1995, a number of boys at the school endured sexual abuse at the hands of some of the monks who taught there, assaults that ranged from relatively minor incidents to, allegedly, rape.”

Robert Nairac attended Ampleforth College starting in 1959, which is outside the time range of the reported alleged incidents. However, I found another reference written by a former pupil who attended Ampleforth College between 1958 and 1963. I quote: “There were a lot of stories about sexual incidents among the boys and monks. Most of them were not true. Boys like to make up stories. Yet some of them were true. It was the practice that if a monk became too friendly with the boys he would be sent away to be a parish priest in Yorkshire, where he probably continued to seek out young boys.” The same source also writes “the housemaster rejoiced in summoning the boys to his study in rotation either to be beaten or to be given embarrassing and uninformed talks on sex, of which they had no experience and hence only theoretical knowledge. These summonings could often arise after the boy was asleep so that he had to be woken up. In this state the victim is more vulnerable.”

If my theory of sexual abuse is correct, it would be haunting to think about the many senseless killings that have been caused by these despicable actions. The blame is not only on those who committed the crime of sexual abuse, but especially on those who knew about it and looked away. Regardless of his sexual orientation and how history judges him, Captain Robert Nairac will remain one of the most charismatic characters of the Irish troubles and the account of his life and death will remain one of the most intruiging stories.

About the life and death of Captain Robert Nairac:
http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/sunday-life/news/nairac-an-undercover-hero-or-a-maverick-fool-13903699.html
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1020695/Heroic-undercover-soldier-Robert-Nairac-savagely-executed-IRA-Will-yesterday-arrest-solve-mystery-missing-body.html
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article3972512.ece
http://www.irishecho.com/search/searchstory.cfm?id=3862&issueid=90
http://samilitaryhistory.org/lectures/nairac.html

Child sex abuse at Ampleforth College:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/3344090/Leading-Catholic-school-is-focus-of-abuse-inquiry.html
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article720925.ece
http://onwardoverland.com/articles/ampleforthabuse.html

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The Bleeding Hills

A Novel by Wilfried F. Voss

I have fought a good fight,
I have finished my course,
I have kept the faith.
- 2 Timothy iv. 7

The Irish War is officially a part of history, but not for Finnean Whelan, an IRA veteran of almost 40 years. British Intelligence has produced evidence that he is the mastermind behind a conspiracy to assassinate the First Minister of Northern Ireland. For Whelan this is not only a mission of revenge, but marks the beginning of a journey into the past and the return to the one true love: Ireland. [More...]

The Bleeding Hills is available at Amazon.Com, Amazon.co.uk, Barnes & Nobel, and any other good bookstore.

The Bleeding Hills - A Novel by Wilfried F. Voss

Yet again the idea behind my book “The Bleeding Hills” has been strikingly confirmed by the the latest attack on British soldiers on March 7th (See my blog entry March 7, 2009 – Terror Returns to Northern Ireland). In my blog entry – and my book – I refer specifically to the operations of the so-called Real IRA and, ironically, the RIRA has claimed responsibility for the attacks. Today’s Online version of The Guardian (http://www.guardian.co.uk) reports that “in a statement, the Real IRA made no apology for shooting the delivery men (Two civilians, who delivered pizza to the barracks, were wounded), accusing them of “collaborating” with the British army by delivering food to the base.”

However, one comment in the first report of the attacks caught my attention, since my book also addresses British undercover operations in Northern Ireland. Northern Ireland’s chief constable, Sir Hugh Orde, had confirmed that undercover British army troops were on paramilitary surveillance duties in Northern Ireland. In my mind I had started another blog entry, complaining that British officials are inexplicably unable to learn from past mistakes, but I have been pre-empted (if I may say so) by somebody more competent to talk about such affairs.

Sinn Fein’s Gerry Adams commented on Sir Orde’s statement today during an interview by BBC Radio 4, saying “The chief constable made a huge mistake bringing in undercover British army units. You don’t understand the history if you don’t appreciate that the involvement of these units in the past – totally unaccountable – has led to the same type of suffering as that that has unfortunately been endured at this time by the families of the two British soldiers who were killed.”

The history of British undercover operations, as Gerry Adams had remarked, did in many instances result in the killing of British soldiers and even, in some bizarre cases, the killing of civilians by British forces in order to discredit the IRA.

For instance, the MRF, the Mobile Reconnaissance Force, was responsible for undercover military surveillance in Northern Ireland until about 1972 when its operation was compromised. The MRF ran the Four Square laundry in Belfast, which accommodated a simple, but highly sophisticated undercover operation. It acted as a regular laundry and it used large green vans for delivery and pickups. The delivery staff would chat with locals, while two SAS soldiers, hidden inside the van, would photograph the houses, their occupants and vehicles of known Republicans. The laundry they collected was scientifically probed for traces of blood, gunpowder, and explosives. It took IRA intelligence months to uncover the operation. They detected two IRA double agents that the MRF had turned. They were interrogated and eventually spilled everything they knew about the undercover operation. On October 2^nd, 1972 at 11:15 am volunteers of a special intelligence unit of the IRA ambushed one of the green Morris vans as it drove through Juniper Park. Two soldiers inside the van were killed, as was the driver, Sapper Stuart, who was on loan from his parent regiment to the SAS.

There are also recurring allegations that British Intelligence, especially the 14 Intelligence Company, cooperated with the UVF, the Ulster Volunteer Force, an illegal paramilitary organization, to organize attacks and bombings in order to blame and discredit the IRA. The 14 Intelligence Company, also known as The Det, was established in 1973 as a response to the uncovering of the MRF. The 14 Company conducted undercover surveillance operations against suspected members of Irish Republican groups and, again, there are widespread allegations that they assisted in bombings and the shooting of innocent civilians.

One of the worst incidents is the killing of the Miami Showband on 31 July 1975. The Miami Showband, one of Ireland’s most popular cabaret bands of the 1970s, comprising both Catholic and Protestant members, were travelling home to Dublin after a gig in Northern Ireland. They were stopped at a roadblock after being flagged down by men in British Army uniforms, which was a common occurrence during the troubles. One of the soldiers, who was also a UVF member, attempted to plant and hide a bomb in the minibus. The plan was that the bomb would explode some time on the way to Dublin. The assumption would have been that the members of the band were supporters of the Republican movement and had been carrying a bomb in their van, apparently with the plan to commit an act of violence. However, the bomb exploded prematurely and killed two soldiers immediately. After the explosion, the remaining UVF members opened fire on the band members and three of the musicians were killed. There are persisting rumors that Captain Robert Nairac, a British army officer and member of the 14 Intelligence Company, had organized the attack in cooperation with the UVF. It is also said, that Nairac was present at the killings.

These are only two examples of British undercover operations that resulted in the unnecessary loss of lives and it is, yet again, incomprehensible that British officials are not capable to learn from experience. Then again, they share this flaw with all dissident organizations opposed to the peace settlement, such as the Real IRA, Continuity IRA, and Oglaigh na hEireann.

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The Bleeding Hills

A Novel by Wilfried F. Voss

I have fought a good fight,
I have finished my course,
I have kept the faith.
- 2 Timothy iv. 7

The Irish War is officially a part of history, but not for Finnean Whelan, an IRA veteran of almost 40 years. British Intelligence has produced evidence that he is the mastermind behind a conspiracy to assassinate the First Minister of Northern Ireland. For Whelan this is not only a mission of revenge, but marks the beginning of a journey into the past and the return to the one true love: Ireland. [More...]

The Bleeding Hills is available at Amazon.Com, Amazon.co.uk, Barnes & Nobel, and any other good bookstore.