A Thread of Violence: A Story of Truth, Invention, and Murder($11.10Value)

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A NEW YORK TIMES AND ECONOMIST BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR • From the award-winning author comes the gripping tale of one of the most scandalous murderers in modern Irish history, at once a propulsive work of true crime and an act of literary subversion. “A masterpiece”— The Observer • “Disturbing [and] compelling”—Colm Toíbín • “Superb and unforgettable"—Sally Rooney • “Brilliant”— New York Times Book Review • “A masterly work”—John Banville • “Fascinating”—Emmanuel Carrère • “Morally complex and mesmerizing”—Fintan O'Toole Malcolm Macarthur was a well-known Dublin socialite.  Suave and urbane, he passed his days mingling with artists and aristocrats, reading philosophy, living a life of the mind. But by 1982, his inheritance had dwindled to almost nothing, a desperate threat to his lifestyle. Macarthur hastily conceived a plan: He would commit bank robbery, of the kind that had become frightfully common in Dublin at the time. But his plan spun swiftly out of control, and he needlessly killed two innocent civilians. The ensuing manhunt, arrest, and conviction amounted to one of the most infamous political scandals in modern Irish history, contributing to the eventual collapse of a government. Winner of the Wellcome and Rooney Prizes, Mark O'Connell spent countless hours in conversation with Macarthur—interviews that veered from confession to evasion. Through their tense exchanges and O’Connell’s independent reporting, a pair of narratives unspools: a riveting account of Macarthur's crimes and a study of the hazy line between truth and invention. We come to see not only the enormity of the murders but the damage that’s inflicted when a life is rendered into story. At once propulsive and searching, A Thread of Violence is a hard look at a brutal act, its subterranean origins, and the long shadow it casts. It offers a haunting and insightful examination of the lies we tell ourselves—and the lengths we'll go to preserve them. SHORTLISTED FOR THE WRITERS PRIZE 2024  One of The New York Times ' 100 Notable Books of 2023 • One of Slate 's 10 Best Books of 2023 • #1 on Air Mail's 12 Best Books of 2023 “Mark O’Connell’s exhilarating A Thread of Violence [is] a probing portrait of one of the most notorious murderers in recent Irish history...[A] deft narrative... Brilliant and rigorously honest.” —New York Times Book Review “A scrupulous, thoughtful work… Mr. O’Connell is a supple writer and penetrating thinker who secured extraordinary access to a notorious killer…. Exemplary.” — The Economist “A masterpiece...A gorgeously nimble stylist, [O’Connell] writes the sort of sentences that get me checking my own in agitated competitiveness. More to the point, no contemporary literary mind seems to me more subtle, perceptive, or trustworthy...[ A Thread of Violence ] is a marvel of tact, attentiveness, and unclouded moral acuity. I admire it without reserve.” — The Observer "A profound meditation on violence and its roots... This book is an outstanding achievement, and a worthy addition to literary attempts to understand the human propensity for evil." —The Guardian “Though A Thread of Violence is true crime, there’s no whiff of sensation, no indulging of the lurid. Rather, this open-minded book is like a cross between Janet Malcolm’s The Journalist and the Murderer and Emmanuel Carrère’s The Adversary … It is such an intriguing, light-on-its-feet exploration of a weird, dark crime.” — The Times (UK) “Interesting, intelligent, very readable… A Thread of Violence is a tantalizing book, forever reaching out toward ungraspable truths, fingers brushing against them before they slip away again. O’Connell is wandering through the unmapped wilds of the human psyche.” —Air Mail “[A] queasily brilliant book…. Clever and thoroughly disquieting.” — Financial Times "[A] gripping portrait… From this increasingly hopeless quest, thanks to his relentless curiosity, integrity, and wonderful prose, O’Connell has created a superb book.” — Literary Review “Remarkable…A book that tells the true story of a crime while scrutinizing our desire for such true-crime stories and the often simplistic explanations they offer for the terrible things people do.” — Slate “An engrossing study, thick with moral ambiguity and startling detail, a rare volume that should appeal equally to the exacting creative nonfiction maven and the insatiable true-crime addict.” — Times Literary Supplement (UK) “Ruminative, sophisticated, urgent, and inky dark. O’Connell is one of the best non-fiction writers around.... Biographers and writers of true crime, I suspect, will come to regard this as a classic. It is more than a niche masterwork, though; it is an exceptional piece of storytelling.” — Sunday Times (UK) “About as good as true crime gets… A paragon of its genre [and] a consummate example of the intellectual heights to which that genre can ascend.” — Prospect Magazine (UK) “In A Thread of