Say Nothing (Keefe) - Book Reviews

Book Reviews
If it seems as if I'm reviewing a novel, it is because Say Nothing has lots of the qualities of good fiction, to the extent that I'm worried I'll give too much away, and I'll also forget that Jean McConville was a real person, as were—are—her children. And her abductors and killers. Keefe is a terrific storyteller.… He brings his characters to real life. The book is cleverly structured. We follow people—victim, perpetrator, back to victim—leave them, forget about them, rejoin them decades later. It can be read as a detective story.… What Keefe captures best, though, is the tragedy, the damage and waste, and the idea of moral injury.… Say Nothing is an excellent account of the Troubles.
Roddy Doyle - New York Times Book Review


An exceptional new book… [that] explores this brittle landscape [of Northern Ireland] to devastating effect… [and] fierce reporting.… The story of McConville's disappearance, its crushing effects on her children, the discovery of her remains in 2003, and the efforts of authorities to hold someone accountable for her murder occupy the bulk of Say Nothing. Along the way, Mr. Keefe navigates the flashpoints, figures and iconography of the Troubles: anti-Catholic discrimination, atrocities by the Royal Ulster Constabulary and occupation by the British Army, grisly IRA bombings in Belfast and London, the internment of Irish soldiers and the hunger strikes of Bobby Sands and others, the Falls Road and the Shankill Road, unionist paramilitaries, the "real" IRA and the “provisionals," counter-intelligence, the Armalite rile and the balaclava. It is a dizzying panorama, yet Mr. Keefe presents it with clarity.
Michael O'Donnell - Wall Street Journal


Patrick Radden Keefe’s new book Say Nothing investigates the mystery of a missing mother and reveals a still-raw violent past.… The book often reads like a novel, but as anyone familiar with his work for The New Yorker can attest, Keefe is an obsessive reporter and researcher, a master of narrative nonfiction.… An incredible story.
Rolling Stone


As the narrator of a whodunit.… [Keefe] excels, exposing the past, layer by layer, like the slow peel of a rotten onion, as he works to answer a question that the British government, the Northern Irish police and the McConville family has been seeking the answer to for nearly 50 years.… Keefe draws the characters in this drama finely and colorfully.… Say Nothing is a reminder of Northern Ireland's ongoing trauma. And with Brexit looming, it's a timely warning that it doesn't take much to open old wounds in Ireland, and make them fresh once more.
Paddy Hirsch - NPR


★ [Keefe] incorporates a real-life whodunit into a moving, accessible account of the violence that has afflicted Northern Ireland.… Tinged with immense sadness, this work never loses sight of the humanity of even those who committed horrible acts in support of what they believed in.
Publishers Weekly


★ Keefe blends… espionage, murder mystery, and political history into a single captivating narrative.… [He] turns a complicated and often dark subject into a riveting and informative page-turner that will engage readers of both true crime and popular history. —Timothy Berge, West Virginia Univ., Morgantown
Library Journal


Keefe’s reconstruction of events and the players involved is careful and assured.… A harrowing story of politically motivated crime that could not have been better told.
Kirkus Reviews