When Dan met James (Marsh) & Eamonn met Tom (Bradby)

Apparently, Robert
James Waller wrote ‘The Bridges of Madison County’ in four weeks. It was
probably one of the worse novels I have ever read, yet when it was turned into
a film, featuring Clint Eastwood and Meryl Streep, it became something
beautiful, a work of art. Some books have been brilliantly translated from one
art form to another: ‘One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest’ lost nothing in
translation.

I certainly hope that ‘Shadow Dancer’ is in that vein
because when I first read and reviewed it, back in the 1990s, admittedly when I
was not long out of jail and perhaps short on tolerance I was very, very
critical. May I say, Mr Mallie, before tossing in my penny’s worth, that I believe
this site to be the most valuable
platform in the North, open, transparent and far more superior to and
attractive than Slugger O’Toole.

So here was my first impression of the book of the
film which I reviewed for ‘The Examiner’ fourteen years ago:

If this book were a film it would go straight to
video. It’s dire. The publicity blurb boasts of the author: “Tom Bradby set a
new precedent in 1993 when, at just 26, he became ITN’s youngest ever Ireland correspondent.
Now just 30, Bradby has penned his debut novel, ‘Shadow Dancer’, a gritting and
compelling thriller based on his experiences investigating and reporting on the
Troubles.”

He must have penned it on his night off.

Having said that, the novel opened promisingly, quite
intelligibly and credibly, with the arrest of an IRA Volunteer in London in
1993 on a bombing mission, her interrogation by MI5 and her agreeing to become
an informer in return for immunity and eventual resettlement. But then it rapidly
degenerated into a series of cliches and the usual stereotypes. This is
understandable as a sales pitch to the prejudices of a politically-illiterate
British audience who think Ireland’s
somewhere near India.
But, you actually get the impression that Bradby himself has only a superficial
grasp of what makes republicans tick, and that his knowledge is largely derived
from briefings from the intelligence services – which he acknowledges.

Colette McVeigh is an attractive 33-year-old
ex-prisoner and a mother of two very young children. Her philandering,
wife-beating husband was shot dead by the SAS when he was on active service
with the IRA; her 11-year-old brother was shot dead by the British army; her
father was a veteran IRA man; her brother Gerard is the commander of the IRA in
Belfast; and her brother Paddy is the commander of the IRA in the Lower Falls.

She left her kids for two months to go bombing in
England but we are expected to believe that when caught, despite her pedigree,
she agrees to become an informer because she doesn’t want to be parted from her
kids. The poor things. Okay, let’s go along with it so far. Then what?

Agent ‘Shadow Dancer’ is released by MI5 and returns
to Belfast. She arrives home just a few hours after a bomb has been thrown
through her mother’s front window, where Colette’s kids also live, though they
weren’t there at the time. She visits them in another sister’s house, literally
for a few minutes, before heading downtown for a drink. Then what? After a few
vodkas with Chico,
an IRA man, he suddenly thrusts a car key into her hand and orders her to
quickly bring a red Sierra to the front door. She does so. Into the car Chico drags a youth. They
drive to an entry in the Falls. Chico
orders Colette to kneecap the youth. She reluctantly does so. British soldiers
appear and open fire. They narrowly escape and go back to Chico’s flat – and
bed.

So, Colette, who started the day in London debriefed
by MI5, ends the day debriefed by an IRA man in Belfast! Tom might be making a
statement here. We’re not sure.

Colette’s handler is the ambitious David Ryan, a
former soldier who served in Belfast. About informers his boss tells him:
“These are people who live life at the extremes, in a world that nothing in our
training and background can ever really prepare us for.”

Scary, or what! Ryan slowly falls for Colette and
isn’t a very intelligent intelligence officer, driving and walking around the
Falls Road on his own, visiting Milltown cemetery, having coffee with Colette
downtown, personally visiting and raiding her house, going alone to an IRA
funeral in West Belfast.

And so it plods on. The peace process is leading up to
an IRA cease-fire, and IRA hawks, led by Colette’s brother Gerard (a
psychopath, of course), are out to clip the wings of the doves. The IRA’s
Internal Security unit (everyone a torturer) sees touts everywhere but is
closing in on the traitor in their midst. Everyone in the IRA hates each other
and, meanwhile, Colette is busy squealing to the Brits in between not spending
much time with her kids.

The action scenes in ‘Shadow Dancer’, a so-called
thriller, are leadened affairs, the characterisation extremely poor. We should
have been able to empathise with Colette’s predicament, despite her betrayals,
but her motivation and the decisions she makes are never convincing.

In fact, it all comes across as a figment of the
imagination of ITN’s youngest ever Ireland correspondent.