The time frame is the 1920’s and we are drawn into the thick of a plot that revolves around a young Winston Churchill. Having tasted political office as head of the British Admiralty, he has been sent as the personal envoy of Prime Minister Ramsey with a message for US President Hoover.
The world is once again teetering toward war in Europe. The Germans are struggling to find a footing and a young upstart in the form of Adolf Hitler is making overtures on the German political scene. A group known as the Geneva group is influencing the finances of the world and involved with factions of the Irish Republican Army who are trying to over throw, members of the Free State of Ireland. The historical factions of the novel are especially true to life, giving a strong factual feel to this fictional story.
Churchill is travelling with a personal bodyguard, a female journalist, Mattie, and employee of Randolph Hearst the publisher and members of the British Secret Service. But he goes out on a limb and employs young Irish American, Bourke Cockran, the son of the former Congressman from New York that Churchill befriended years previously. Cockran makes a hash out of everything he touches, as he doesn’t seem to comprehend that he is being followed by several groups of people. Even after his home, office and hotel room are burglarized and several people he associates with are killed, beaten or reaped, he does not seem to be able to turn around and notice the same, black sedan at every corner.
He does finally learn his lesson as on the run, with an arrest warrant for murder out on his head, he continues to knock heads with the IRA, German agents and even Al Capone’s gangsters until he manages to wreak revenge on his wife’s murderer and win the new girl to boot.
In a fast-paced, historical thriller, the first of a trilogy, McMenamin leaves us hoping Cockran’s skills as an investigator increase if he is to make it to the third book in one piece.
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There are only a few authors who can create readable, believable historical fiction, and there are even fewer who can create a page-turning thriller within that genre.

The father and son writing team of Michael and Patrick McMenamin are definitely the exception. With The De Valera Deception, the first book in what looks to be an amazing series, the McMenamin’s have recreated the robust world of the late 1920’s just before the Depression. This is a world of gin, jazz, the Industrial Revolution, women’s suffrage and the beginning of some modern day world-wide conspiracies.

Bourke Cockran is summoned by Winston Churchill to investigate how the Irish Republican Army is getting arms from the German government through channels in the United States. With the help of Mattie McGary, a photojournalist for Hearst and the god-daughter of Churchill, they embark on a non-stop thrill filled adventure from London to New York and places in between.

A Germany left bitter after WWI seeks to rebuild its former glory by any means, including a clandestine partnership with the Soviet Union. The beginning of modern spy warfare, international terrorism, and the formation of new European alliances keep Cockran and Mattie barely ahead of the bullets and the law.

Even though they are attracted to each other, Cockran is still grieving over the loss of his wife who was murdered in the Civil War that erupted in Ireland in 1922. The primary reason he took the job form Churchill is that he wants revenge for his wife at any cost.

This thriller is peppered with Soviet assassins, IRA terrorists, government bureaucracy, legendary historical figures, and notorious gangsters that give the reader an intense and intriguing read.

The DeValera Deception is an excellent novel, woven with rich historical detail that breaths vitality and life into the people of an often overlooked era. ( )