In Northern Ireland, from the late 70s to the early 90s, the IRA killed over 40 alleged informers.

But the man who often found, tortured and sometimes killed these people on behalf of the IRA

was himself an informer, a secret British army agent with the codename Stakeknife.

Who gets to play God? And why me? Why my family? When lies are still being told to this day,

who do you believe? I wouldn't even know where to start, and I'm with the IRA.

Steakknife. Listen first on BBC Sounds.

BBC Sounds, music, Radio, podcasts.

Hello. Today, misunderstandings, reinterpretations and the desire to leave old lives behind.

We look at one novel that describes a man trying to outpace his past and another in which a great-grandmother reluctantly returns to hers. We start with a new book from

Karas Davis, an award-winning short storywriter whose first novel West, set in 19th century America,

won widespread acclaim. In her latest, the Mission House, she moves from the America of the

past to the India of just a few years ago,

but at the heart of both books stand men out of kilter with the world around them.

In the Mission House, Hilary Bird has fled the London suburb of Petswood and come to India not so much

to find as to escape himself. Oppressed by the heat, he travels to a town high in the hills

and accepts the local Anglican priest's offer of accommodation.

Teaching the priest's adoptive daughter English sewing and baking,

Hillary begins to imagine a new life is possible.

But tensions arising in the town, particularly regarding the presence of foreigners as the country swings towards nationalism.

When I spoke to Caris Davis, I asked her about Hilary Bird, who seemed to me to be a man out of step with his times.

Yes, he's always struggled with life, but he's now in his early 50s, and for the last 25 years or so, he's managed

to achieve a kind of stability with the help of his sister and his job at the library, but a series

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