Blood-Dark Track

September 1, 2010
Both ONeills grandfathers, one Turkish Christian, one Irish Catholic, were imprisoned by the British during World War II. What had they done wrong? In researching their stories, ONeill discovers secrets, personal and political, and his gripping family memoir also reveals a seldom-told bloody history. All the detail gets confusing at times as the author visits the prisons and delves into letters, newspaper reports, official documents, and family stories. But the muddle and mystery of spies and counterspies are part of the authentic narrative. ONeills fathers father, James ONeill, joined the IRA. Was he complicit with Nazi Germany? Or was he an informer for the British? Were they planting information on him? The maternal grandfather, Joseph Dakak, was arrested on a business trip to Palestine and spent more than three years in prison there. Does a just war justify undeserved personal suffering? Was Dakak paranoid to think his fellow prisoners were informers? The political issues are sure to spark intense debate, but more than that, it is the miserable small story of individual lives that holds the reader.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2010, American Library Association.)