Say Nothing by Patrick Radden Keefe

This book chronicles the underbelly of the struggle in Northern Ireland.  Nearly 4,000 people were killed in the Troubles in Northern Ireland between the late 1960s and the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, as violent tensions flared between mostly Catholic republicans, who sought unification of Northern Ireland with the Republic of Ireland, and a mix of Protestant paramilitaries, police, and British army forces arrayed against them. People died in shootings and riots and bombings. They were killed in street level struggles, while guarding military posts, or while simply going about their daily lives in Belfast.  It was a brutal time, and this book chronicles it beautifully.  The book follows two sisters who were part of the Catholic armed resistance, were jailed for their part in the London bombings, and who participated in the organized hunger strikes that led to their repatriation to Ireland, and the abduction and murder of a Belfast native, leaving her numerous children orphaned and seeking justice.  It lays out the quandaries involved for both sides, and when you shut it at the end, you are both sad and resigned to the way people are.