PUBLIC SERVANT, SECRET AGENT: THE ELUSIVE LIFE AND VIOLENT DEATH OF AIREY NEAVE. by Routledge, Paul - 2002

London: Fourth Estate, 2002. 392 pp, 9 1/2" H. B&w photographs. "On 30 March 1979 for the first time in more than 100 years an MP was killed in the precincts of the House of Commons. And his was a very violent death: a bomb, triggered by the ascent of his car up the ramp from the underground car park, detonated enough explosives to sever his legs from his body and render him unrecognisable. Airey Neave was a loyal Tory backbencher who had last held ministerial office in 1959. What, then, had he done to deserve such a vicious and bloody attack? Neave was an extraordinary man. Eton and Oxford educated, he served in the Royal Artillery and was captured and ultimately imprisoned in Colditz. He became the first Briton to escape. On the strength of his experience he was recruited by the security services to a divison of MI6 and was an advisor on escape and insurrection in occupied Europe until the end of the second world war. (After his work at the Nuremberg trials he) moved into open politics, as MP for Abingdon from 1953, without ever losing his taste for the covert. A shadowy figure on the right of the Conservative party, he ploted the overthrow of Ted Heath and the installation of Margaret Thatcher. (When Neave asked Thatcher for Northern Ireland, the) intelligence services found they had one of their men in a pivotal role at a crucial moment. To Irish Nationalists, Neave was a threat that could not be allowed to thrive. His life and death were enacted in the deep shadows just behind the glare of public life." Slight lean to spine, light wrinkling at top/bottom of spine, tiny edge tear on page leaf 259/260, slight toning to edged of text block, tiny white stains on fore-edge of rear board. Dust jacket has minor edge wear, minor rubbing, moderate wrinkling at top of spine and flap-folds - light wrinkling elsewhere.. First Edition. Hard Cover. Very Good -/Good+.