Behind the scenes at the Brighton bombing

Sadly, I can’t see it catching on, but one of the notable things about Jonathan Lee’s new novel is that it features a fleeting appearance by John Redwood. The late Geoffrey Howe is there too, distractedly eating fishcakes as he holds forth on the difference between humans and animals. Redwood, Howe and the rest of Mrs Thatcher’s Cabinet have gathered in Brighton’s Grand Hotel on the eve of the Tory conference in October 1984.

In Belfast, Dan, one of the Provisional IRA’s brightest young stars, has been given the job of helping real-life bomber Patrick Magee plant the device that would kill five people — there has always been speculation that Magee had an accomplice who was never caught. This, though, is no Day of the Jackal retread. Lee’s fictional recreation of the events leading up to the bombing concentrates on the lives — often the inner lives — of his three protagonists: Dan, the bomber, Moose, the deputy manager of the Grand, and his 18-year-old daughter, Freya.