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.

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Today's program is devoted to one of the UK's best-loved novelists,

a one-time political editor of The Observer,

whose string of bestsellers, 12 in all,

have taken us from ancient Rome to the corridors of Westminster,

from an imagined world where Hitler won the war,

to the codebreakers at Bletchley Park

and even into the heart of the Vatican.

Selling over 25 million novels to date, Robert Harris's regular focus on the rise, fall and

corrupting influence of power remains consistently relevant, despite his century hopping.

His latest, the second sleep,

takes it a stage further, as a historical novel set in the far future. It kicks off in what appears to be the Middle Ages, when a young priest, Christopher Fairfax, is tasked with overseeing

the funeral of his predecessor in a remote Wessex village.

Suspecting foul play, his investigations lead to a startling discovery, not least for we readers.

...