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Acts of Allegiance
Senior Irish diplomat, Marty Ransom, is torn between duty to his country and loyalty to the Anglo-Irish tradition in which he was raised. In a land divided into north and south, Planter and Gael, Catholic and Protestant, Marty’s life has been spent walking a tightrope. When he meets Alison, a Home Office employee now transferred to the British embassy in Dublin, Marty’s fidelities are once again split. Lured ever deeper into the lethal world of counter-espionage, he finds himself in fatal conflict with his cousin and childhood friend. As this deadly endgame unfolds, Marty must choose between all which he loves and holds dear, and his allegiance to a past that remains just beyond his reach.
320 pages, Paperback
First published September 21, 2017
63 people are currently reading
163 people want to read
About the author
Peter Cunningham
8 books22 followersPeter Cunningham is an award winning Irish novelist.
He is best known for the historical novels The Sea And The Silence, Tapes Of The River Delta, Consequences Of The Heart and Love In One Edition, which chronicle the lives of local families during the twentieth century, in Monument, the fictional version of Waterford in south-east Ireland, where Cunningham grew up.
His novel, The Taoiseach, which was based on the life of former Irish Taoiseach (prime minister) Charles J. Haughey was a controversial bestseller.
Capital Sins, a satirical novel, dealt with the collapse of the Irish economy during the financial crisis that began in 2008.
Cunningham’s work has attracted a significant amount of critical attention and praise. The Sea And The Silence (translated into French as La Mer Et La Silence) was awarded the Prix de l’Europe in 2013. This novel was also short-listed for the Prix des Lecteurs du Telégramme and the Prix Caillou.
Consequences Of The Heart was short-listed for the Kerry Listowel Writer’s Prize. In 2011 Cunningham won the Cecil Day Lewis Bursary Award.
His fiction is distinguished by its fusing of political material with psychological realism and a lyrical sensitivity to place and people.
Peter Cunningham is a member of Aosdána, (the Irish Academy for Arts and Letters). He has judged the Glen Dimplex Literary Awards and the Bantry Festival Writer’s Prize.
Under the pseudonym Peter Wilben, he has published the Joe Grace mystery thrillers series
http://www.amazon.com/Peter-Wilben/e/...
He is best known for the historical novels The Sea And The Silence, Tapes Of The River Delta, Consequences Of The Heart and Love In One Edition, which chronicle the lives of local families during the twentieth century, in Monument, the fictional version of Waterford in south-east Ireland, where Cunningham grew up.
His novel, The Taoiseach, which was based on the life of former Irish Taoiseach (prime minister) Charles J. Haughey was a controversial bestseller.
Capital Sins, a satirical novel, dealt with the collapse of the Irish economy during the financial crisis that began in 2008.
Cunningham’s work has attracted a significant amount of critical attention and praise. The Sea And The Silence (translated into French as La Mer Et La Silence) was awarded the Prix de l’Europe in 2013. This novel was also short-listed for the Prix des Lecteurs du Telégramme and the Prix Caillou.
Consequences Of The Heart was short-listed for the Kerry Listowel Writer’s Prize. In 2011 Cunningham won the Cecil Day Lewis Bursary Award.
His fiction is distinguished by its fusing of political material with psychological realism and a lyrical sensitivity to place and people.
Peter Cunningham is a member of Aosdána, (the Irish Academy for Arts and Letters). He has judged the Glen Dimplex Literary Awards and the Bantry Festival Writer’s Prize.
Under the pseudonym Peter Wilben, he has published the Joe Grace mystery thrillers series
http://www.amazon.com/Peter-Wilben/e/...
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Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews
August 11, 2018
The Irish Troubles is a magnet for writers—there have been many novels that leverage The Troubles to create action-packed and sometimes convoluted books. Fortunately Peter Cunningham combines this tale of espionage with family dynamics, betrayal and reflection, which elevates it into another level.
The plot in a nutshell: Our narrator is Marty Ransom, an unassuming English-educated Irishman who becomes a civil servant in Dublin’s Department of External Affairs. His life is satisfying: a lovely wife, two children, and a weekend farm that they escape to after the busy week. It is there that he meets up with their friends Chase and Alison, who works for the English Home office. Alison dangles the carrot and Marty bites—without really planning to, he tumbles into exchanging what he perceives as harmless information and then directly the world of espionage. But when Marty is called upon to help capture the Irish Republican Army mastermind, who just happens to be his first cousin and childhood pal, the stakes begin to escalate.
There are many twists and turns in this book and so I’ll provide no more about plot. Suffice to say that the book’s underpinnings are not truly locked in the espionage genre—it is the psychological insights that drive it. Many themes become apparent: how do our childhoods shape the people we become? What creates true value in life one’s life? Where do our allegiances really lie—with those we love now, with those who have formed us, or with the potential of what we can become? What happens when conscience and patriotism end up colliding?
Those who enjoy linear books—I am not one of them—should know that this book shifts back and forth in time, enlightening us about pivotal moments that have influenced Marty into being the man he is today. This, for me, was a compelling read—all the more compelling when I found out later that Peter Cunningham’s own father acted as s spy on potential IRA plots years ago.
The plot in a nutshell: Our narrator is Marty Ransom, an unassuming English-educated Irishman who becomes a civil servant in Dublin’s Department of External Affairs. His life is satisfying: a lovely wife, two children, and a weekend farm that they escape to after the busy week. It is there that he meets up with their friends Chase and Alison, who works for the English Home office. Alison dangles the carrot and Marty bites—without really planning to, he tumbles into exchanging what he perceives as harmless information and then directly the world of espionage. But when Marty is called upon to help capture the Irish Republican Army mastermind, who just happens to be his first cousin and childhood pal, the stakes begin to escalate.
There are many twists and turns in this book and so I’ll provide no more about plot. Suffice to say that the book’s underpinnings are not truly locked in the espionage genre—it is the psychological insights that drive it. Many themes become apparent: how do our childhoods shape the people we become? What creates true value in life one’s life? Where do our allegiances really lie—with those we love now, with those who have formed us, or with the potential of what we can become? What happens when conscience and patriotism end up colliding?
Those who enjoy linear books—I am not one of them—should know that this book shifts back and forth in time, enlightening us about pivotal moments that have influenced Marty into being the man he is today. This, for me, was a compelling read—all the more compelling when I found out later that Peter Cunningham’s own father acted as s spy on potential IRA plots years ago.
June 30, 2018
The more I read, the more I discover how little I know about the world. In this Irish John le Carre novel about the troubled times of Northern Ireland, Marty, is drawn into intelligence work by the British against the IRA. Marty is a unique position having a high level job at the Republic of Ireland's Department of External Affairs and a cousin, Iggy, who is a major bomb maker for IRA.
The story is told in flashbacks and current times. It discusses his childhood in Waterford and his father, the Captain, who served in the British Army during WWII. It covers the times when he met his wife, Sugar (a name I found so irritating throughout the whole book), the beginning of his career and the friendship with a couple that gets him involved in the world of counterintelligence.
After Bloody Sunday, the British concoct a plan to assassinate Iggy who they are blaming for the making the bomb denoted at Parliament. Marty is dragged in by a multiple of pressures and heads to Northern Ireland to meet his cousin. The reverberations follow Marty throughout his life.
A spine tingling thriller, it really shows the threads that bind Northern Ireland, the Republic of Ireland and England. A study of morality when all the areas are grey and the hard decisions that life makes you decide.
The story is told in flashbacks and current times. It discusses his childhood in Waterford and his father, the Captain, who served in the British Army during WWII. It covers the times when he met his wife, Sugar (a name I found so irritating throughout the whole book), the beginning of his career and the friendship with a couple that gets him involved in the world of counterintelligence.
After Bloody Sunday, the British concoct a plan to assassinate Iggy who they are blaming for the making the bomb denoted at Parliament. Marty is dragged in by a multiple of pressures and heads to Northern Ireland to meet his cousin. The reverberations follow Marty throughout his life.
A spine tingling thriller, it really shows the threads that bind Northern Ireland, the Republic of Ireland and England. A study of morality when all the areas are grey and the hard decisions that life makes you decide.
October 30, 2018
When I saw that John Banville endorsed this book, I knew that this was no lightweight story or even a genre political thriller. It suggested that Cunningham’s novel would center on the human condition, and it does, superbly. The structure, characters, prose, and plot of this Irish writer’s tale are all first rate and first class, and it hit me like a gut punch when the denouement arrived.
You don’t have to be an expert in the Irish Troubles (I had a smattering of knowledge through other novels and films); you only need a curiosity and empathy for what it is to have divided loyalties and inner conflicts. What does it mean when your allegiances to family, relationships, career, politics, childhood memories, and secret affinities put you in doubt and danger? How do you control the outcome when you aren’t truly in control?
The prologue of the novel starts in the present, in Ontario, and focuses less on exposition and more on a character, but vaguely introduced. The circumscribed approach to the story is the rule rather than the exception throughout the book. It caused me to pat close attention while simultaneously letting go, as the reader is led back and forth through different years and decades from the 50s until present time—in Ireland and other parts of Europe.
Initially I was frustrated at not having a handle on where I was or where I was going, but permitting myself to essentially trust the author and accept that the enigmatic framework had a purpose, and the further I progressed, the deeper I was lodged. The mood is permeated with existential dread, a monumental engine of the story.
I don’t even want to get into the set-up or content of the story, as this is one of consummate discovery for the reader, which embraces the sort of restricted access to the reader of plenary information. Part of the progression is piecing it together as the author intends.
However, we are indulged and installed into certain events in Marty Ransom, the protagonist’s, life, especially his gilded childhood memories of Waterloo farm in Waterford, a rural farm in south-east Ireland. The narrative returns to it repeatedly, and each time a piece of the puzzle is placed. Marty’s childhood, affections, and root loyalties are illustrated. As an adult, he works in the Department of External Affairs, a post that requires a cool impartiality between the politics of the British forces in the Northern UK, and the competing forces of the IRA.
There’s drama, romance, love, adventure, politics, sex, fidelities, bonds, betrayals, ambitions, collisions, duty, and violence that will break your heart and keep you in icy suspense. Soul searching, devotions, memories, treachery, contempt (and self-contempt), and perceived safety are key ingredients and keep the reader off-balance and exhilarated.
“…The person I really hated was myself, for, just as all the characters in our dreams are different manifestations of ourselves, so the object of our deepest abhorrence are trapped in the parts of us that have fallen into the lost abyss of our souls.”
A definite must for literary readers and thrill riders.
You don’t have to be an expert in the Irish Troubles (I had a smattering of knowledge through other novels and films); you only need a curiosity and empathy for what it is to have divided loyalties and inner conflicts. What does it mean when your allegiances to family, relationships, career, politics, childhood memories, and secret affinities put you in doubt and danger? How do you control the outcome when you aren’t truly in control?
The prologue of the novel starts in the present, in Ontario, and focuses less on exposition and more on a character, but vaguely introduced. The circumscribed approach to the story is the rule rather than the exception throughout the book. It caused me to pat close attention while simultaneously letting go, as the reader is led back and forth through different years and decades from the 50s until present time—in Ireland and other parts of Europe.
Initially I was frustrated at not having a handle on where I was or where I was going, but permitting myself to essentially trust the author and accept that the enigmatic framework had a purpose, and the further I progressed, the deeper I was lodged. The mood is permeated with existential dread, a monumental engine of the story.
I don’t even want to get into the set-up or content of the story, as this is one of consummate discovery for the reader, which embraces the sort of restricted access to the reader of plenary information. Part of the progression is piecing it together as the author intends.
However, we are indulged and installed into certain events in Marty Ransom, the protagonist’s, life, especially his gilded childhood memories of Waterloo farm in Waterford, a rural farm in south-east Ireland. The narrative returns to it repeatedly, and each time a piece of the puzzle is placed. Marty’s childhood, affections, and root loyalties are illustrated. As an adult, he works in the Department of External Affairs, a post that requires a cool impartiality between the politics of the British forces in the Northern UK, and the competing forces of the IRA.
There’s drama, romance, love, adventure, politics, sex, fidelities, bonds, betrayals, ambitions, collisions, duty, and violence that will break your heart and keep you in icy suspense. Soul searching, devotions, memories, treachery, contempt (and self-contempt), and perceived safety are key ingredients and keep the reader off-balance and exhilarated.
“…The person I really hated was myself, for, just as all the characters in our dreams are different manifestations of ourselves, so the object of our deepest abhorrence are trapped in the parts of us that have fallen into the lost abyss of our souls.”
A definite must for literary readers and thrill riders.
August 19, 2018
What a treat Peter Cunningham's, "Acts of Allegiance" is! I took it up upon the recommendation of a trusted reading friend, and she is NEVER wrong about what she knows I'll like!
Set in England and Ireland after WWII and as "The Troubles" were heating up (what a ridiculous understatement about a violent and brutal war that killed thousands of civilians in Northern Ireland and England), narrated in the first person by Marty Ransom, who considers himself "An Irishman", and finds himself emmeshed in a spy game that will test his loyalties to country, family, and ideology.
Cunningham's prose is gorgeous. I gulped up this lovely novel in one day, and hope that it will be made into a film or series; there are "throw-away" references to Marty's WWII escape in Africa that could be explored! The novel is both suspenseful and mysterious, with secrets revealed and motivations unraveled. Everything you could ask for in a "spy" tale, plus beautiful writing and characters to care about.
There is a decidedly Irish point of view here, which I appreciated (I'm half Irish), though the novel is largely even-handed. I appreciated this reflection early on: "They [the Irish] understand the Brits. It comes from having someone stand on your neck for seven hundred years -- you develop a high sense of awareness as to his weight, his change of mood...He, on the other hand, is largely unaware that you exist."
Marty is a fascinating character and his decisions are intriguing. Yet there are many other characters that fill out his story who are equally fascinating; his wife Sugar, his parents (particularly his father "The Captain"), his friend Alison, his cousin Iggy, and more.
Treat yourself to this one!
Set in England and Ireland after WWII and as "The Troubles" were heating up (what a ridiculous understatement about a violent and brutal war that killed thousands of civilians in Northern Ireland and England), narrated in the first person by Marty Ransom, who considers himself "An Irishman", and finds himself emmeshed in a spy game that will test his loyalties to country, family, and ideology.
Cunningham's prose is gorgeous. I gulped up this lovely novel in one day, and hope that it will be made into a film or series; there are "throw-away" references to Marty's WWII escape in Africa that could be explored! The novel is both suspenseful and mysterious, with secrets revealed and motivations unraveled. Everything you could ask for in a "spy" tale, plus beautiful writing and characters to care about.
There is a decidedly Irish point of view here, which I appreciated (I'm half Irish), though the novel is largely even-handed. I appreciated this reflection early on: "They [the Irish] understand the Brits. It comes from having someone stand on your neck for seven hundred years -- you develop a high sense of awareness as to his weight, his change of mood...He, on the other hand, is largely unaware that you exist."
Marty is a fascinating character and his decisions are intriguing. Yet there are many other characters that fill out his story who are equally fascinating; his wife Sugar, his parents (particularly his father "The Captain"), his friend Alison, his cousin Iggy, and more.
Treat yourself to this one!
September 8, 2018
Narrated at a remove, the story of Marty Ransom shifts between years, illuminating the seminal events that propelled the course of his life against the backdrop of "The Irish Troubles." The southeast of Ireland, several hours outside Dublin is geography that Peter Cunningham knows well. His descriptions of the Ransom ancestral farmlands and the hermetic small local town vividly set the tone and the place. But there are three seemingly unconnected timelines that only become clear as the book advances. A prologue somewhat in present day, Marty's boyhood beginning at age 11 in 1951, and his middle years from the 1960's through the 1980's. This review has been a struggle since I've written and erased large swaths, removing them because I really don't want to discuss any of the plot beyond the setup, since it would be difficult to so without spoiling it.
March 19, 2020
I liked this book, but it was super hard to follow, particularly when one is not in the frame of mind to pay close attention. I did really get caught by this quote, though. "At such moments, she becomes convinced that the present is provisional and that time is simply being marked here while a more suitable place is being prepared, into which they will shortly move, a fresh plane where the past will be regained quite naturally." Sounds good!
April 6, 2023
This was an "okay" read. There were a lot of details in the lead up to the plot and a few questionable relationships/scenarios that had me slightly hooked. Although this is a very political story that drags in personal life that puts you in a state of suspense. I enjoyed it more towards the end although I'm left wondering what if because they left the end of the story open. I'm unsure if there is a sequel to this book or not but either way it was left hanging.
March 1, 2019
Abandoned ship.
I didn't like any part of it. I was already in the middle of the book and bored to tears. This was not a book that made me want to keep turning the pages. For starters, I can't stand a single character that I have met. All the characters in it need serious therapy. Especially this main character. Too dysfunctional.
Part One is a complete muddling mess. Once I made it through, some things started happening but it was forgettable and wasn't enough to keep me interested.
Considering the number of 4 stars this book has, I can only assume that I must have missed something, or this is a type of book that was written for a certain type of reader and wasn't for me. Even though I personally rate this a 2, out of fairness that I just might not be the reader for a book like this, I gave it a 3.
I started this book February 20th. Even as a busy parent, if a book is good, I will sit down and take the time to read it, and I am usually done in a few days. But, it's now March 1st and I'm only halfway through it. Tells me it was time to put it back on a shelf. I really have no interest in how it ends anyway.
What a shame. It seemed interesting enough when I read the dust jacket. But I just have too many TBR books lined up to waste any more time with this one.
I didn't like any part of it. I was already in the middle of the book and bored to tears. This was not a book that made me want to keep turning the pages. For starters, I can't stand a single character that I have met. All the characters in it need serious therapy. Especially this main character. Too dysfunctional.
Part One is a complete muddling mess. Once I made it through, some things started happening but it was forgettable and wasn't enough to keep me interested.
Considering the number of 4 stars this book has, I can only assume that I must have missed something, or this is a type of book that was written for a certain type of reader and wasn't for me. Even though I personally rate this a 2, out of fairness that I just might not be the reader for a book like this, I gave it a 3.
I started this book February 20th. Even as a busy parent, if a book is good, I will sit down and take the time to read it, and I am usually done in a few days. But, it's now March 1st and I'm only halfway through it. Tells me it was time to put it back on a shelf. I really have no interest in how it ends anyway.
What a shame. It seemed interesting enough when I read the dust jacket. But I just have too many TBR books lined up to waste any more time with this one.
November 3, 2020
On Page 167, the wife of the main character says to him, "I just don't know you, that's the problem." She's not the only one. I never could get a handle on why the protagonist was doing what he was doing. Love of a woman? Love of country? Early onset midlife crisis? In addition to weak-to-nonexistent character development, the plot is all over the lot, and not helped by frequent switches in time. And the ending, and then the coda to the ending, are beyond improbable. There are good books about the moral complexities of the Troubles, including some "thrillers," but this isn't one of them.
May 16, 2020
An interesting book that follows the events of an Irish family from the early fifties, through the "Troubles" to the present. With Irish / Anglo policy in termoil, families torn, sides setting boundaries, unemployment running rampent, it was easy to find unsettling acts of violence taking over counties in the north. Mr. Cunningham mastered a fine story of a young man having to consciously choose between the past and the repercussions of the consequences of future actions.
June 20, 2025
Marty Ransom is caught between his Irish childhood friend, Iggy and his adult position in the Department of External Affairs, sort of a middle man between the U.K. and Ireland. Complicating Marty’s role as a somewhat benign spy for the Brits is his old chum Iggy is a grown—up bomber for the IRA. Also in the mix is Marty’s love for his wife and kids, and Sugar and his feelings for Alison, a family friend who is secretly his ‘handler’ for the Brits. So where exactly does his allegiance lie?
October 9, 2018
Here's my review in The Woven Tale Press:
https://wtpcentral.thewoventalepress....
https://wtpcentral.thewoventalepress....
May 6, 2019
Couldn’t get into it. Maybe I’ll try again at another time. It seems good but I found myself skipping around.
February 4, 2022
Interesting take on the Irish troubles and the impact on families. Moved right along although the beginning was a bit slow and confusing.
May 21, 2022
Suspenseful spy novel about the Irish Troubles.
December 27, 2024
Great book. Really enjoyed this. I did find the chronology a but tricky at the start but once the timeframe settled this book was riveting. 4.5/5.
December 12, 2018
Acts of Allegiance is an Irish John Le Carre. You know from page 1 things will not end well but you spend the whole book trying to figure out what gets you there
Modern Irish historical fiction often leaves me cold at best. I think Proxopera by Benedict Kiely and other less important books. This book is smart. No political axe to grind., although it is possible to infer the author's attitude to the IRA campaign. Otherwise Brits Irish it doesn't seem to make a difference.
I enjoyed the book and could not predict it.
A well told story.
Modern Irish historical fiction often leaves me cold at best. I think Proxopera by Benedict Kiely and other less important books. This book is smart. No political axe to grind., although it is possible to infer the author's attitude to the IRA campaign. Otherwise Brits Irish it doesn't seem to make a difference.
I enjoyed the book and could not predict it.
A well told story.
Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews