Nights in Armour

A policeman's lot is not a happy one or so the song goes, but throw in the IRA, loyalist paramilitaries, the British army and a Republican hunger strike, and it gets a whole lot worse. Carson Clarke, Jim Reid and their colleagues in the RUC are charged with policing a provincial town in Derry, arguably the most dangerous environment in the developed world. They're trained to deal with car accidents and shoplifters, but history and politics just keep getting in the way as a series of shootings and bombings bring Northern Ireland to the brink of civil war. Their job gradually becomes a struggle to survive, and just keeping sane gets difficult as, bit by bit, their world collapses around them. Written with the authenticity of someone who served as a police officer in Northern Ireland at the time, and who lived through and experienced similar events. This book was also written very close in time to the historical events and carries the authenticity of the dialogue and thinking employed by the characters.

Samuel Thompson was born in Belfast and grew up in the loyalist working-class areas of Shankill and Ballysillan, where he witnessed the start and worst years of the Northern Ireland Troubles. He joined the Royal Ulster Constabulary at the age of eighteen in 1979 and served in Counties Armagh and Tyrone, West Belfast and Belfast city centre, where he experienced the loss of colleagues and friends and saw numerous killings and bombings at first hand. Samuel retired in 2008 and expanded his love of history through writing a history of the Second World War and lecturing on the subject.