The intimacy of the Ulster conflict, what it means to carry out a political murder when in all probability the victim is personally known, or lives in a nearby street, is described accurately by an honest participant.

The book does not attempt to soften the impact of the events it describes through euphemism or rhetoric. It is a truthful picture of the brutality and waste caused by the IRA's unwinnable campaign, and of its human consequences. It is also a self-portrait of the despair and disintegration, the hardening to conscience and grief, that accompany political violence.