MacIntyre

For undercover journalist Donal MacIntyre, death threats are the sign of a job well done. After the broadcast of his World In Action investigation into the drugs trade, MacIntyre was forced to flee the country in fear for his life. In April 1998, he began an even more ambitious project: to live four lives simultaneously, using the latest technology to gather evidence of malpractice and criminal activity. The worlds which he chose to explore were diverse--football hooliganism, fashion, confidence tricks and care homes--as were the methods used to infiltrate them. The result was a series of BBC films, providing startling evidence of right-wing violence, exploitation, con tricks and abuse.

MacIntyre Undercover offers a complete picture of events throughout the year. It provides a fascinating insight into the magnitude of the task attempted by MacIntyre and his team. Where the television series presented the investigations as discrete units, the book gives a much clearer picture of a man operating in extraordinary circumstances. Conducting four investigations simultaneously causes MacIntyre no end of problems. One morning, he might be "Macca" the football thug, complete with Chelsea tattoo; that afternoon, he might be working in a care home, noting with sadness the violence around him. Underlying every word or action is the knowledge that he might at any moment be found out; at the same time, there are serious moral and ethical implications to the investigation's use of covert surveillance. MacIntyre admits that "we make it up as we go along" but he also adheres to a strict code of conduct to ensure that he is beyond reproach, even whilst those around him condemn themselves in their own words.

Not surprisingly things occasionally go wrong--the failure of the investigation into Solomon, the Nigerian con man, simply confirms the sophistication of Solomon's operation. There is a real sense of MacIntyre's exhaustion and fear as he shares a car with right-wing thugs or smuggles surveillance equipment into Russia. The diary format also places the undercover work in a personal context, as when MacIntyre's mother falls ill during the period of the investigation or when the journalist finds himself working in a care home over Christmas, unable to join his family. The result is a unique glimpse into the psyche of a man whose first thought upon being beaten to the ground by football hooligans, is to turn on the camera. --John Oates