In 1924 Michael McDare is in an internment camp in England for Irish rebels. He escapes to the United States, and plots for three years a political assassination. He collects money, works out his plan to the minutest details, and then returns to Dublin in disguise. He persuades a small group of accomplices, all past associates in the Irish republic cause to assist him. There is McFetterich, known as Fetch and also as Gutty. He is something of a hothead, eager to rush in and eager to take the lead in the plot. Then ...
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In 1924 Michael McDare is in an internment camp in England for Irish rebels. He escapes to the United States, and plots for three years a political assassination. He collects money, works out his plan to the minutest details, and then returns to Dublin in disguise. He persuades a small group of accomplices, all past associates in the Irish republic cause to assist him. There is McFetterich, known as Fetch and also as Gutty. He is something of a hothead, eager to rush in and eager to take the lead in the plot. Then there is Kitty Mellett. She comes from a bourgeois family, the rest of whom were very anti-republican. McDare had been in love with Kitty when he had previously lived in Ireland and still seems to have an affection for her. Lastly there is Tumulty. Tumulty had been thrown out of the republican movement for being too unreliable. He is not very reliable but is able to get a lot of men together to assist as well as to steal the necessary getaway car. The Assassin is a political thriller-a story of revolution and anarchy-and a psychological novel. Mr. O'Flaherty has sought first to examine the idea of political assassination and secondly to survey the forces in play in revolutionary Irish politics in the 1920's. The assassination he narrates is modelled upon an actual sensational event which occurred in 1927. On 10 July 1927 Kevin O'Higgins was assassinated in the streets of Dublin. He had fought for Irish independence but had become more conservative and, as Minister of Justice of the Irish Free State, had signed the execution orders of seventy-seven political prisoners. His assassination was the IRA's revenge for that action. The Assassin is a masterly investigation of the mind and motives behind a political murder. It deals with violent death, a central alienated individual, the city and the frequently grotesque creatures who inhabit its 'underworld'. And like all of O'Flaherty's thrillers, The Assassin captures a time and a facet of Dublin life in a way that no other fiction has succeeded in doing.
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Seller's Description:
Very Good Plus. No Jacket. Signed by Author The fifth novel by the great Irish writer, which he dedicated "To My Creditors." This is a Very Good (Plus) copy of the First Edition Thus, which is LIMITED to 150 copies, SIGNED by the author. A scarce title, thus. Blue cloth binding, with a reproduction of O'Flaherty's signature on the front cover; gilt lettering on the spine. Clean text; 286 pages, with the top edge gilt. The spine has faded to an olive brown colour, with the sunning starting to creep around the other margins. There is some rubbing to the rear paste-down; possibly something was attached there at some time; but aside from the fading, there is not much wrong with the book. A very solid copy. No dustwrapper; in an archival plastic protector. Size: 12mo-over 6¾"-7¾" tall.
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Seller's Description:
Fine in Near Fine jacket. First edition. A fine, bright copy in near fine striking pictorial dust jacket (by "J. L. Carstairs")jacket with a few tiny nicks at tips of spine and with three neat internal mends on the verso, else fresh and bright. Signed by O'Flaherty on the front flyleaf.