08.11 Harry's Game by Gerald Seymour

Harry's Game (1975) by Gerald Seymour
Pbk., Fontana, 221pp.

"A British cabinet minister is gunned down by an IRA assassin. The police trail goes cold, and undercover agent Harry Brown is sent to infiltrate the terrorist organization and get the killer. It's a race against the clock, and one false move will be enough to leave him dead before he reaches his target."

I really dig these 70's adventure novels a la Desmond Bagley, Alistair Maclean, Hammond Innes, etc. This one turns out to be the first novel by Gerald Seymour, an ex TV reporter who covered Ireland and the Troubles for years. All that knowledge served him well in this book. As Harry penetrates deep into the heart of the IRA you get a real sense of how it felt in that time both from the British soldiers perspective and the IRA one. The other interesting thing about this book is that he writes almost as much about the perspective of the IRA assassin as he does about Harry. We see him come home after the hit and try to reintegrate with his family as well as with the military structure of the IRA. All in all, a great book about an era that is quickly fading from the collective memory.