Shortly after midnight on the 15th May 1977, undercover British soldier Robert Nairac was abducted by a lynch-mob comprised of some Provisional IRA supporters and two PIRA members. He was interrogated under extreme torture and then shot dead in a remote rural area near Ravensdale Forest. He was twenty-eight years old, and his body has not yet been recovered.

There are many unanswered questions. It is likely that Nairac could have been rescued, had the emergency procedures which applied when a soldier went missing been activated when they should have been. Given that he had gone to Drumintee without backup on the night of his murder (and the reason why he did so is still not clear), why was a nearby detachment of the COP Platoon of the Worcestershire Foresters not immediately scrambled to look for him at the Three Steps Bar when he failed to return to base at the appointed time of 11.30 pm or at latest when he missed a mandatory radio-check at midnight?

Why did the SAS keep the fact of his disappearance from his immediate superior, the then Major “H” Jones, for several crucial hours? Why was his disappearance not notified to the military and police authorities in Northern Ireland and the Republic until about six hours after it should have been and two to three hours after his death? Why was a highly misleading account of Nairac's last hours given to Ministers, who then misinformed Parliament and the public?

Why did the Army falsely deny holding any record of Nairac's blood group, to the disbelieving anger of both the RUC and the Irish Garda?  Why was Nairac's room at Bessbrook Mill ransacked at least twice before any RMP SIB team or RUC detectives had a chance to look at the evidence that it might contain? And why were certain evidential items removed and suppressed? 

It came as no surprise that the IRA should subsequently have tried to justify Nairac's “execution” by accusing him of being a cold-blooded and ruthless killer, guilty of spectacular crimes and human rights abuses against Irish civilians. It was less expected that, starting almost immediately after his murder, certain soldiers and former soldiers, both officers and other ranks, especially some connected with the SAS, should add their voices to the chorus of  denunciation of Nairac and be joined in this and supported by people at the heart of the British politics. How and why did this come about?

The author, Alistair Kerr, has spent three years finding the answers to at least some of these questions. He has uncovered a complex web of secrets and lies. The events leading to Nairac's death were a tenebrous affair, from which only a few people emerge with credit. One of them is Nairac himself, who proves to have been a far more complex and interesting person than previous writers have realised, and whose reputation has been largely cleared of the many crimes posthumously laid at his door.