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.

Today we discuss a cinematic sweep of novels

from a gritty crime procedural set in 1990s, L.A.,

to the books behind the success of hit TV dramas like Bridgeton and the Queen's Gambit.

But first to the novelist Kate Moss, whose latest historical adventure transforms the 16th century

wars of religion into a page-turning drama. The City of Tears is her second in a planned

quartet charting the story of the French Protestants, the Huguenots, across two continents and three centuries.

Much of the action is told through the eyes of noblewoman Mino-Joubert,

her Huguenot husband, Pete, and their children,

who travel from their Longadoc Castle to Paris to attend the wedding of the Protestant Henri of Navarre.

His bride is the Catholic, Marguerite de Valois. With tension rising

in the aftermath of their marriage, the city is a tinderbox. In the makeshift camps and medieval

alleyways, tempers were running high. Irritations broke out over every inch of ground. Knives were

quickly drawn and insults thrown like stones.

Bruised faces, bruised honour. Everywhere, the stench of men and women in confined quarters pervaded the air.

In the grand houses and boulevards, wives argued with their husbands, and servants complained about the

endless demands of foreign guests. Neighbours, who had once passed the time of day in the

...