At the heart of this history of two families are the stories of two flawed and charismatic men. It is a narrative of murder, paranoia, espionage and fear, with one of the most notorious political killings in pre-war Ireland playing a key role in its characters' lives.

Joseph O'Neill's grandfathers—one Irish, one Turkish—were both imprisoned during the Second World War. The Irish grandfather, a handsome rogue from a family of small farmers, was an active member of the IRA, and was interned with hundreds of his comrades by de Valera's government. O'Neill's other grandfather, a debonair hotelier from the tiny and threatened Turkish Christian minority, was imprisoned by the British in Palestine, where he was travelling to buy lemons, on suspicion of being an Axis spy.

Joseph O'Neill set out to investigate these imprisonments of Joseph Dakad and Jim O'Neill, which were veiled by family silences, and found himself having to come to terms with memories of violence, with a legacy of fierce commitment and political blindness; with the enchanting power of nationalism and the fear and complicity of the bystander. He was changed by what he found, and he has written a remarkable book about the ties and limits of kinship. With great tact, he sets the stories of individuals against the history of the last century's most inhuman events. Blood-Dark Track is, above all, vivid, colourful and moving, as full of interesting characters as a good novel.