Valhalla's Wake: The Ira, MI6, and the Assassination of a Young American - Hardcover

Loftus, John; McIntyre, Emily

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0871132478 ISBN 13: 9780871132475

Publisher: Atlantic Monthly Press, 1989

Synopsis

Recounts the 1984 Valhalla international espionage scandal involving the IRA, CIA, Mafia, and British SAS

About this title

From Publishers Weekly:

Loftus and McIntyre are, respectively, a Boston lawyer and a retired professional spy for West Germany. The book is mainly about the latter's son, John McIntyre, a likable young man who grew up in the Boston area, became involved in Mafia drug trafficking, then threw in his lot with the Irish Republican Army. Arrested for his part in an attempted transfer of arms to an Irish ship in mid-Atlantic, he purportedly fell victim to an arrangement between the American and British governments and was last seen on November 30, 1984. The authors, with John McIntyre Sr., also a retired spy, convincingly claim to have uncovered evidence that the young man was assassinated by British agents to protect an in-place mole. Loftus declares that "the two governments painted a bull's-eye on John McIntyre's back and they didn't even tell him." The book is a high-powered narrative about multiple betrayal that reads at times like a le Carre novel with dialogue by George V. Higgins.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal:

John McIntyre was a young, bright American whose idealistic support for the Irish cause helped lead him along the dark byways of the Boston harbor and into a life of drug running and arms smuggling. He could not have chosen worse playmates than the IRA, the Boston Mafia, British intelligence, and incompetent and warring American law enforcement agencies. After the arms-carrying Irish vessel S.S. Valhalla was intercepted by British intelligence, McIntyre was secretly assassinated by the British (his body was never found), made to take the fall to protect the true British mole on board. McIntyre's tale is vividly told by Loftus, McIntyre's lawyer and also author of The Belarus Secret ( LJ 12/15/82), and McIntyre's mother, who herself worked as an international spy. Tragic, yes; inevitable, probably. Sordid incident? Major expose? A little of both.
- H. Steck, SUNY Coll. at Cortland
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Atlantic Monthly Press
• Publication date: 1989
• ISBN 10: 0871132478
• ISBN 13: 9780871132475
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 236