Killing Thatcher: The IRA, the Manhunt and the Long War on the Crown

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Just over two months after Mrs Thatcher, in tears, left No 10 Downing Street for the last time in November 1990, ending 11 years as prime minister, the IRA propelled an improvised mortar bomb into the back garden of No 10, her “refuge from the rest of the world”, as she described it. Thatcher emerged more or less unscathed but five people were killed and several more were horribly injured. Margaret Thatcher was the perfect opponent for the Provisional IRA, as implacable in her belief that right was on her side as they were in theirs. Moreover, on the advice of a sympathetic engineer who studied the hotel, the bomb was placed so as to bring the chimney stack down on those below, effectively using the building itself as the real weapon.

Opening with a brilliantly-paced prologue that introduces bomber Patrick Magee in the build up to the incident, Carroll sets out to deftly explore the intrigue before and after the assassination attempt - with the story spanning three continents, from pubs and palaces, safe houses and interrogation rooms, hotels and barracks. The number of British politicians who were killed by republican groups was small, but British politics was changed for the worse.They feared that it might just be some adulterer on a dirty weekend, but eventually lifted a fingerprint from it and matched it to Magee.

He begins with the infamous execution of Lord Mountbatten in 1979 – for which the IRA took full responsibility – before tracing the rise of Margaret Thatcher, her response to the ‘Troubles’ in Ireland and the chain of events that culminated in the hunger strikes of 1981 and the death of 10 republican prisoners, including Bobby Sands. This way of framing the horror that descended in the middle of the night during the Tory party conference was cruelly dismissive of the terrible harm done to real human beings.Bestseller ‘As taut as a fictional thriller’ Mail on Sunday ‘Gripping, detailed and richly layered’ Guardian KILLING THATCHER is the gripping account of how the IRA came astonishingly close to killing Margaret Thatcher and to wiping out the British Cabinet – an extraordinary assassination attempt linked to the Northern Ireland Troubles and the most daring conspiracy against the Crown since the Gunpowder Plot. A real example of how a seemingly unsolvable problem can be solved if there is enough will on both sides.

Killing Thatcher is even-handed, never shying away from the conditions and deprivations that led young men like the Brighton bomber Patrick Magee to sign up to kill. An exciting narrative that blends true crime with political history, this is the first major book to investigate the Brighton attack.

Opening with a brilliantly-paced prologue that introduces bomber Patrick Magee in the build up to the incident, Carroll sets out to deftly explore the intrigue before and after the assassination attempt with the story spanning three continents, from pubs and palaces, safe houses and interrogation rooms, hotels and barracks. In this fascinating and compelling book, veteran journalist Rory Carroll retraces the road to the infamous Brighton bombing in 1984 – an incident that shaped the political landscape in the UK for decades to come.

He deftly maps out the wider context of the dogged and bloody conflict, as well as bringing to life the high stakes cat-and-mouse game between the IRA and British security forces.

Certainly, the main plot is the run-up to, and aftermath of, the bomb attack on the Grand Hotel Brighton in 1984, which was designed to kill Thatcher, ostensibly in revenge for her handling of the hunger strikes. The IRA’s statement after its bomb exploded in a bathroom on the sixth floor of the Grand Hotel, Brighton, in October 1984, was cleverly sinister but, with its repeated emphasis on luck, oddly airy. Rejoice” declaimed Margaret Thatcher outside No 10 Downing Street, London, on April 25th, 1982, in her first media doorstep after British forces had triumphed in the 74-day Falklands War that had cost more than 900 lives. Were the dead – Jeanne Shattock, Anthony Berry, Eric Taylor, Muriel Maclean and Roberta Wakeham – victims merely of ill fortune? In this fascinating and compelling book, veteran journalist Rory Carroll retraces the road to the infamous Brighton bombing in 1984 an incident that shaped the political landscape in the UK for decades to come.