Target

By David Hodges

There’s no escape…

Maggie Connolly is a fun-loving teenager, who is living with her widowed father, ‘Big’ John Connolly, in West Belfast. Happily going out with schoolboy sweetheart, Bobby Steel, she has not a care in the world…

But dark clouds are already gathering on the horizon. It is 1970 and the so-called Troubles are just starting. Furthermore, not only is her beloved da an RUC police sergeant, but Bobby happens to be a Protestant and, as Maggie herself is Catholic, their relationship is taboo in the eyes of both sides of the bitterly prejudiced sectarian divide.

When ‘Big John’ is gunned down in front of Maggie by Provisional IRA assassin, Seamus McCain, she suffers a mental breakdown and finds herself committed to a psychiatric unit, unaware that Bobby is in no position to help her as he has been beaten into a coma by Protestant thugs for dating a Catholic girl.

And her problems are only just beginning: when McCain is acquitted of Big John’s murder and released on to the street, Maggie becomes an easy target for MI5, who capitalise on her vulnerability and desire for revenge to seduce her into working for them as a freelance assassin.

Torn by doubts and guilt, Maggie embarks on a bloody self-destructive vendetta against McCain and his IRA cell. But it soon dawns on her that her cynical MI5 ‘paymasters’ are only using her for their own ends. Too late, she finds herself trapped in a quagmire of deceit and treachery which promises to destroy not just her, but Bobby as well…

David Hodges is a former superintendent with Thames Valley Police, and is a prolific writer and the author of eight other crime novels, plus an autobiography on his life in the police service. He lives with his wife, Elizabeth, on the edge of the Somerset Levels where he can fully indulge his passion for thriller writing. He is a member of the Crime Writers’ Association, The Crime Readers’ Association, The Society of Authors and International Thriller Writers Inc.