From the award-winning author comes a gripping account of one of the
most scandalous murders in modern Irish history, at once a propulsive
work of true crime and an act of literary subversion.
"Circles the inner life of the murderer Malcolm Macarthur with
subtlety and forensic care...Complex and disturbing as well as
intriguing and compelling." --Colm Toíbín, author of The Magician and
New York Times bestseller Brooklyn
**** Malcolm Macarthur was a well-known Dublin socialite and heir. Suave
and urbane, he passed his days mingling with artists and aristocrats,
reading philosophy, living a life of the mind. But by 1982, his
inheritance had dwindled to almost nothing, a desperate threat to his
lifestyle. Macarthur hastily conceived a plan: He would commit bank
robbery, of the kind that had become frightfully common in Dublin at the
time. But his plan spun swiftly out of control, and he needlessly killed
two innocent people. The ensuing manhunt, arrest, and conviction
amounted to one of the most infamous political scandals in modern Irish
history, contributing to the eventual collapse of a government.
Winner of the Wellcome and Rooney Prizes, Mark O'Connell spent countless
hours in conversation with Macarthur--interviews that veered from
confession to evasion. Through their tense exchanges and O'Connell's
independent reporting, a pair of narratives unspools: a riveting account
of Macarthur's crimes and a study of the hazy line between truth and
invention. We come to see not only the enormity of the murders but the
damage that's inflicted when a life is rendered into story.
At once propulsive and searching, A Thread of Violence is a hard look
at a brutal act, its subterranean origins, and the long shadow it casts.
It offers a haunting and insightful examination of the lies we tell
ourselves--and the lengths we'll go to preserve them.
