Acts of Allegiance

Starred review from July 16, 2018
Marty Ransom, the mild-mannered narrator of this remarkable novel from Irish author Cunningham (The Trout), works in the economics section of the Department of External Affairs in Dublin. With his wife and children, he spends weekends at his family’s farm in the country, where, one day in the summer of 1964, his friend Alison, who’s employed by the British Home Office and whose husband once dated Marty’s wife, suggests that he should either have an affair with her or do some spying for the English. He agrees to the latter. As the years pass, Marty meets occasionally with Alison to talk about what the Irish government is planning, especially after the 1969 riots in Northern Ireland. Eventually, Alison asks Marty to help capture the Irish Republican Army’s top bomb maker, Iggy Kane, who’s his cousin and childhood friend. As Marty tumbles down the rabbit hole of espionage, his marriage begins to fail and his secret involvement with the English turns deadly. Readers are advised to pay close attention as Cunningham’s beautiful, twisting story unfolds until arriving at its sad, shocking conclusion.