Terrible Beauty

If you think the face of the so-called terrorist is one of a steely eyed thug, unshaven behind a balaclava, think again. It could be Bernadette, the heroine of Peter King's Terrible Beauty, a proud, strong North of Ireland woman taunted and wounded by sneering occupation forces, her husband in jail, her children terrified by state violence. Peter King performs an extraordinary literary feat by entering the mind of this woman, taking us on a suspenseful, dizzying journey of the freedom fighter nearly always called "terrorist." You don't have to be Irish to read this book-human will do. -- Malachy McCourt This is the work of a dead honest man. It is fascinating to find a congressman who writes this well, and then goes out and changes the evil he writes about. He calls this work on Northern Ireland Terrible Beauty. My vote says this is a beautiful job of writing. -- Jimmy Breslin Behold: the novelist is the diplomat is the politian, Congressman Peter King, whose role in the Irish peace accords helped to put an end to the violence he so vividly depicts. -- Lars-Erik Nelson New York Daily News