Confessional

By Jack Higgins

A KGB-trained IRA assassin has gone rogue and is hellbent on killing the Pope. The IRA, KGB and British Secret Service are all after him, but can Liam Devlin get there first? Classic Jack Higgins for the new generation.

Operating in Ireland to keep the cycle of violence between the IRA and British Intelligence at a fever pitch, hit man Cuchulain targets the pope as his ultimate victim, and two enemies become the only people who can stop him.

The third book in the Liam Devlin series, hero of The Eagle has Landed.

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins UK
• Release date: Nov 11, 2010
• ISBN: 9780007290383

Jack Higgins

Jack Higgins lived in Belfast till the age of twelve. Leaving school at fifteen, he spent three years with the Royal Horse Guards, and was later a teacher and university lecturer. His thirty-sixth novel, The Eagle Has Landed (1975), turned him into an international bestselling author, and his novels have since sold over 250 million copies and been translated into sixty languages. Many have been made into successful films. He died in 2022, at his home in Jersey, surrounded by his family.

Reviews for Confessional

[bridgey_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

brilliant addition to the Liam Devlin series. Fast paced, easy to read.... the words just flow so smoothly. Loved it..... can't wait for my next Jack Higgins book. :)

[ecw0647 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I thought I would give Higgins another try. Several years ago I listened to part of a Sean Dillon novel and it must have been the reader. I quit half way through. This one is read by a different reader and perhaps it's the narration or simply a better story, but this one was riveting. The KGB has planted a mole/sleeper in Ireland. He was trained in a replica of a little Irish community located in the Ukraine (yes, it's dated, so what?). Kelly is charged with fomenting discard between the Irish and British in hopes of preventing any kind of peace accord. Brigadier Ferguson and Captain Fox discover a pattern of assassinations almost by accident and they enlist the support of the IRA and Provisional Army to locate the culprit.

Lots of twists and turns, a very believable plot, if archaic and predictable. Solid page-turner.

[davidlerickson · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is one of the oldest Higgins novels I've read, but it is very good and quite true to the style and content I've come to expect from him. I recognized some of the names from later novels, so was kind of like reading a diary in places.Lots of bad guys doing some good things and bad things, lots of bad guys getting tapped. I was disappointed a couple of the bad guys didn't get roughed up more or simply eliminated, but heh, you can't have a everything -:)Quite entertaining. Had trouble setting it aside when I needed to.

[theoclarke · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A layered thriller in which a KGB sleeper agent, who has spent years ensuring that the Irish sectarian conflict never resolves, decides to undertake a suicidal assassination of the pope during his 1982 visit to the UK. There are repeated references to events of the Falklands War, which was under way at the time; the story is set immediately after the events of Exocet. The novel is littered with familiar Higgins characters including Brigadier Charles Ferguson and his Group Four anti-terrorist department, and Liam Devlin (an academic IRA member introduced in The Eagle Has Landed).

[deaconbernie · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

It is very interesting to track an author as I've been doing. This work, from 1985, is very tightly woven. It is the work of good story teller, before he became famous, or at least famous as he has since become. The characters are quite developed, even the young policewoman, Susan Calder. Even though the ending seems inevitable, Higgins is able to hold interest but without the sort of tricks he uses later..

[darla_2 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

It's been quite a while since I've read a Jack Higgins book, though his were the first action/adventure, spy novels I ever read. Now I remember why I enjoyed them so much.I was slightly disoriented at the beginning of the book, when the setting changed from an Irish village to the Soviet Union. Turns out that was intentional, and the Irish village was a training camp for spies.One man from the training camp, a very talented actor, code name Cuchulain, has been living in Ireland for 20 years. His task: to foster unrest. To this end, he's been part of the IRA, but he also works for the other side--whichever will make the situation in Ireland worse.British Intelligence learns of this from a defector, and has to work in conjunction with the IRA and the only two people who can identify him: the defector and the foster daughter of a high-ranking Soviet official, a concert pianist who was just a child when Cuchulain killed her father.The story has several twists, as our heroes try one avenue after another to find and stop the elusive and deadly Cuchulain. By the end of the story, the Soviets are after him as well.Reading other reviews, I'm informed that this is part of Higgins's Liam Devlin series, something I'm sorry to say I wasn't aware of. I never read his books in anything like a logical order, or even deliberately, instead just picking up random books here and there when I found them. If I didn't have so much to read, I might consider trying to re-read them all in order.Regardless, Confessional is what a spy novel should be: exciting, edge-of-your-seat suspense and action, plenty of twists and turns, and characters and consequences you can care about. I did guess Cuchulain's cover identity fairly early on, but that was made up for by the intriguing and chilling premise of one man in the right place at the right time being able to cause so much havoc. I also need to add a bit of praise for Higgins's writing style. It's clean and transparent--that is, I can dive into the story without even noticing the words.I think I need to start keeping an eye out for Jack Higgins books again.