"An extraordinary story of the death of a very brave young man and a tragedy of our times"
- Frederick Forsyth

The recent arrest of a suspect in the ongoing investigation into the death of Captain Robert Nairac, GC, murdered in Northern Ireland in 1977 has revived interest of one of the most compelling stories of that era.

The much reviewed first edition of my book, which relied heavily on the first person testimony of colleagues and SAS officers, was published under the title of Death of a Hero in 1998, and a new edition is now available entitled Secret Hero, published by Blake.

In reviewing the original book in the Sunday Times, Cal McCrystal wrote: "John Parker's insights into intelligence-gathering are disquieting. An exceptional strength of this book is the way in which it allows Nairac's superiors and colleagues to express themselves, uncut and uncensored, not only on the circumstances of the hero's death, but on the mysteries of intelligence-gathering. Never, so far as I know, has there been such a telling account of the intelligence agencies' self-inflicted wounds."

Alexander von Straubenzee, in the Spectator, noted: "John Parker has produced a well-researched book which goes a long way towards unravelling the mystery ... It is very informative and immensely readable."

Original synopsis for Death Of A Hero:
Mystery shrouds the disappearance and death of Grenadier Guards Captain Robert Nairac, GC, kidnapped and murdered by the IRA in May 1977. More than twenty years after his death, his story still haunts the imagination, not least because of Nairac's extraordinary courage and the fact that his body was never found.

In January 1976, at the height of the vicious undercover war with the IRA, Robert Nairac, aged 29, received the call. Nairac, a devout Catholic, student of Irish history and robust singer of Irish rebel songs, was released from his duties with the Grenadier Guards and seconded to the SAS with the specific task of intelligence liaison. With his black Labrador for company, he was posted to the most dangerous area of operations, the 'bandit country' of South Armagh. Here he was plunged into the murkiest of intelligence worlds, awash with dirty tricks, and riven by the internecine rivalry between M15 and M16. After months of knife-edge operations undercover, Nairac was snatched from a South Armagh pub where he had arranged to meet a contact; he was driven across the border into the Irish Republic, interrogated and shot. Even his captors admit he died like a hero, and he was posthumously awarded Britain's second highest military honour, the George Cross.

But many questions remain: Why was he targeted? What was Nairac's specific role? Why was he working alone and without backup? Who was he meeting and why? What happened to his body? Could he have been betrayed by his own side? Or was his death, as one British MP claimed, in revenge for Nairac's involvement in secret killings? John Parker at last answers those questions in this enthralling and disturbing book. Drawing on unprecedented access to senior Army and SAS colleagues, and interviews with friends from earlier days. the author provides a detailed chronology of Nairac's undercover war in Northern Ireland. For the first time, his exact security operations are revealed in vivid first-person recall; this full, dramatic account will finally lay to rest the speculation surrounding the death of an authentic British hero.

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