Book description
In The Trigger Men, bestselling author Martin Dillon delves into the
dark and sinister world of Irish terrorism and counter-terrorism. Over
three decades he has interviewed and investigated some of the most
professional, dangerous and ruthless killers in Ireland. Now Dillon
explores their personalities, motivations and bizarre crimes. Many of
Ireland's assassins learned their trade in fields and on hillsides in
remote parts of Ireland, while others were trained in the Middle East or
with Basque separatist terrorists in Spain. Some were
one-target-one-shot killers, like the sniper who terrorised the
inhabitants of Washington State in the autumn of 2002, while others were
bombers skilled in designing the most sophisticated explosive devices
and booby traps. Another more powerful group of 'trigger men' were the
influential figures in the shadows, who were experts in motivating the
killers under their control. All of these men, whether they squeezed the
trigger on a high-powered rifle, set the timer on a bomb or used their
authority to send others out to commit horrific and unspeakable acts of
cruelty, are featured in this book. The Trigger Men takes the reader
inside the labyrinthine world of terrorist cells and highly classified
counter-terrorism units of British Military Intelligence. The individual
stories are described in gripping, unflinching detail and show how the
terrorists carried out their ghastly work. Dillon also explores the
ideology of the cult of the gunmen and the greed and hatred that
motivated assassins in their killing sprees. There are penetrating
insights into the mindset of the most infamous assassins: their social
and historical conditioning, their callousness...... Martin Dillon has
won international acclaim for his unique investigative reporting and is
regarded as one of the foremost experts on global terrorism. He is the
author of 14 books. His bestselling trilogy The Shankill Butchers, The
Dirty War and God and the Gun, from his non-fiction work, is regarded as
the definitive account of the Ireland conflict. He also co-authored
Rogue Warrior of the SAS: The Blair Mayne Legend and The Assassination
of Robert Maxwell: Israel's Superspy. He lives in New York.
