This was my final book from the 1990 Booker shortlist, which I have been reading as part of a project by The Mookse and the Gripes group on GoodReads. It is a gripping and horrific tale of a hotel manager caught up in an IRA plot.

Michael Dillon is the manager of a Belfast hotel which is due to host a loyalist firebrand who must be modelled on Ian Paisley. He is planning to leave his wife and go to England with a young Canadian, when he is visited at home by masked IRA terrorists who demand that he leaves his car (which they have armed with a bomb) outside the hotel, while they hold his wife hostage with the threat to kill her if he does not comply. The book follows the moral dilemmas that they face. It is not a long book, but it is very difficult to put down. ( )

This 1990 novel by Moore is set in Belfast during the troubles. It has now been nearly 20 years since a form of peace was brokered in Northern Ireland. Perhaps people have forgotten this or if you are young enough you might be completely unaware of it somehow. "The Troubles" and terrorist attacks by the IRA seemed to be almost weekly news when I was growing up and through a good part of my adult life.

This is a rather powerful novel which presents the reader with a lot of food for thought. I thought about writing a rather extensive review/discussion of this until I took a look at the reviews on Goodreads and was rather floored by some of the hate directed at this novel, primarily by students who have read it for Lit classes in school. It reminded me just a little of when I was reading Graham Greene in a college English class and was kind of knocked out by some of his stories like Power and the Glory and The Destructors, and yet in class discussions some students absolutely detested him. Do these sorts of stories raise moral dilemmas that people cannot contemplate so they react in anger against the books? I don't know.

This book by Moore is written in a somewhat unusual style. This is a slow burner of a story. I feel sorry for people who cannot recognize there is some brilliance that created this book. Yeah I could rip a page or two out of this book myself in anger. That's how brilliant it is. ( )

Lies of Silence is one of the very few thrillers ever to grace the Man Booker Prize shortlist. Set in Belfast during the Troubles, the book carries with it a subtle, slow-burning suspense which doubtlessly caught the judges' attention. Yet the novel succeeds also as a thoughtful reflection not just on the damage wrought by terrorism, but on personal responsibility, morality and the compromises of middle age.

The story begins with restless hotelier Michael Dillon plotting his escape from a loveless marriage and a hometown he despises. But before he can begin his new life in London with a younger, more stable woman, Dillon is drawn an IRA plot that involves a crushing moral dilemma.

Brian Moore had a particular flair for illuminating the psychology of people in crisis; indeed Dillon, his wife and his lover are amongst Moore's most heartrendingly well-drawn characters. Lies of Silence is a typically excellent effort by a seriously underrated novelist. ( )

Was forced to read it for school, the writing was terrible, the characters were boring, and the pace was annoying. Didn't honestly care what happened at the end, and I was right- since the end was terrible.

Definitely won't be re-reading this one... ( )

interesting regarding moral dilemas ( )