The Truth Commissioner

Status: Completed

Henry Stanfield, a career diplomat, is appointed Truth Commissioner to Northern Ireland. Stanfield is to head a Commission for Truth and Reconciliation, aimed at allowing politicians to share power with almost un-bloodied hands. This is a key appointment which will almost certainly earn Henry a knighthood. But investigation into the murder of Connor Walshe, a 15 year old so-called informer, reveals rather more Truth about those now sharing power in Belfast, than either the London or Dublin government find politically convenient. Francis Gilroy, veteran Republican and recently appointed government minister in the new power-sharing executive, has survived the armed struggle, and has seemingly achieved his life’s objective. But the violence of his past has left him unable to eat, sleep, or make love to his wife. And his problems multiply as the Truth Commission begins to zone in on the murder – years earlier – of Connor Walshe.

In Boston Massachusetts, Michael Madden an ex-IRA volunteer thinks he has buried his past and
reinvented himself with a new identity. But when our story begins he is unaware that he will be
dragged back to Belfast to take the rap for a politician whom all sides want protected. Retired RUC detective James Fenton, has of late led a quiet life, but he too will be forced to face the Truth Commission over his role in the murder of Connor, a boy he had illegally recruited and was supposed to protect, Fenton knows who really killed Connor, but forces beyond his control compel him to remain silent. But will he? The secret past that these four men share, threatens to destroy what each has built in the present, for the Truth is often less about what will be gained, so much as what might be lost.