REVIEWS

Dirty War, Clean Hands was launched in Ireland on April 17, 2001. It entered the Irish Non-Fiction Bestseller Top Five in the week it was released. It stayed in the Top Five for seven weeks, reaching number 2.

• THE IRISH TIMES (NEWSPAPER)

"One of the most important books about post-Franco Spain ever published."
(Paul Preston, Professor of Spanish Studies, London School of Economics and Franco biographer)

• TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT (NEWSPAPER)

"A brilliant piece of investigative journalism that deserves to be read by more than just those interested in Spain...a thrilling and sometimes gruesome narrative journey involving murder, abduction, conspiracy and legal trial...his oral sources are astonishing...using the best methods of contemporary journalism...story-telling, reconstructions of conversations and a sophisticated analysis of the politicians' discourse." (Sebastian Balfour)

• RICHARD GILLESPIE

Dirty War, Clean Hands makes an important contribution to the literature on political violence...it brilliantly depicts the human drama of the conflict and provides penetrating insights into the world of ETA." (Richard Gillespie, School of Politics, University of Liverpool, pre-publication review)

• THE SCOTSMAN (NEWSPAPER)

"The book was completed before just before the World Trade Centre attacks on 11 September...but now carries a prescient urgency and universal relevance...Woodworth's dark, definitive examination of the violent response to terrorism is alarmingly relevant." (Bob Flynn) 

• BRIAN KEENAN

"This book should be become a reference text in every university with a peace studies curriculum." (Brian Keenan, author of An Evil Cradling and former Beirut hostage, launching the book in Dublin)

• THE SUNDAY TIMES (NEWSPAPER)

"There is a short list of books that never go back to my shelves. Three of them deal with what seem to be the permanent passions of Irish politics - Conor Cruise O'Brien's States Of Ireland, Peter Hart's The IRA And Its Enemies, and Justin O'Brien's The Arms Trial. But last week I placed a new book about Spanish politics, Paddy Woodworth's Dirty War, Clean Hands on top of the pile. (His) writing has edge as well as elegance...iron integrity... (a) scholarly and superbly told story...all the hallmarks of a classic." (Eoghan Harris)

• THE (LONDON) INDEPENDENT (NEWSPAPER)

"This fascinating and gripping book works at several levels. Paddy Woodworth is a distinguished journalist with a clear style which propels the narrative. Dirty War, Clean Hands explains the byways of the Spanish legal and political system, and the highways of the bloody history of the Basques and the rest of Spain. Dirty War, Clean Hands is crucial for anyone interested in Iberian politics, terrorism or counter-terrorism." (14 May 2001, John O'Farrell)

• TIME (MAGAZINE)

"Dirty War, Clean Hands is a balanced, finely documented tale of how easily democratic institutions can run off the rails. Including interviews with some of the top figures in the GAL scandal, it is also gripping, often more like reading John le Carre than history. It should be translated into Spanish, French and any language spoken where democracy is taken for granted... masterful." (14 May 2001, Rod Usher)

• THE DAILY TELEGRAPH (NEWSPAPER)

"Paddy Woodworth is an Irish Times journalist with a mordant sense of humour, the ability to tell clearly a very complex story and an admirable grasp of modern Spanish history. In order to navigate his readers through an often confusing tale, he uses the language of the political thriller, but his underlying message is a serious one - that democratic states ought not descend to the level of their terrorist opponents, and that when they do so the consequences are almost always the opposite of their stated aims. A racily written and meticulously researched study." (2 June 2001, Stephen Hayward)

• FINANCIAL TIMES (NEWSPAPER)

"Paddy Woodworth (is) one of the more incisive and well-informed commentators on the region. His book draws on personal experience and interviews with Basque nationalists to explain ETA's continuing campaign....But it is also a thesis on the nature of state counter-terrorism and the struggles of young democracies. A well-balanced book which at no stage sinks into ETA propaganda, or the crass intolerance towards Basque nationalists which too many so-called Spanish democrats convey to this day. An impressive piece of work." (23 June 2001, Jimmy Burns)

• STUDIES IN ETHNICITY AND NATIONALISM (JOURNAL)

"One of the most analytical, serious and well-documented books on State terrorism and its dreadful socio-political implications...original and fascinating...providing profound and outstanding insights...essential reading, not only for academics and scholars, but for the general public." (Vol 2, No 1, 2002, Pedro J Oiarzabal, LSE)

• THE OBSERVER (NEWSPAPER)

"Woodworth's dedication to his subject is obvious; his research, despite a mountain of conflicting evidence, is impeccable and he depicts the human drama behind the complex political events with insight and compassion." (5 January 2003)
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• SUNDAY BUSINESS POST (NEWSPAPER)

"Dirty War, Clean Hands unravels the story of a quest for truth and justice. Paddy Woodworth pays great attention to detail and demonstrates extreme caution in the way he portrays both victims and perpetrators of this dirty war. Woodworth's book is impressively researched. The point made from beginning to end is clearly set out and articulately argued. The state was involved, the state covered up, the state must now be accountable to the Spanish people. Woodworth manages to untangle the lies and the multiple, contradictory stories and to present us with a convincing version of the history of that infamous counter-terrorist organisation (GAL)...if the denouement is still not fully known, the author of this momentous book succeeds in convincing the reader of his fundamental point: The GAL phenomenon achieved what ETA sought but could not accomplish alone: it inserted a corrosive question mark into the widely accepted success story of the Spanish transition to democracy. Compelling." (April 20 2001, Agnes Maillot)

• IRISH INDEPENDENT (NEWSPAPER)

"This book reads like a political thriller and, in every way, it is. It traces the history of the rise and fall of the Anti-terrorist Liberation Groups (GAL), the perpetrators of a dirty war against the Basque revolutionary separatist group ETA between 1983 to 1987. While passionately engaged in his subject, the author manages to strike a balance in his research. The result is an extraordinary book that has been written with patience, skill and dedication. This text demonstrates the strength of investigative journalism at its best. Reading Dirty War, Clean Hands in a single sitting, I was reminded by its contents of Leonardo Sciascia's novel Il Contesto and other the work by the same author, The Moro Affair. The author has provided a very helpful chronology which acts as an indispensable map.... This book is finely written and will hold your attention. Read the book...outstanding...gripping." (28 April 2001, Dermot Keogh)

• SUNDAY TRIBUNE (NEWSPAPER)

"This book is a labour of love, a monument to humane understanding of a key episode in a prolonged and tragic conflict .........to which no end is in sight. The book is a forensic analysis of the human, moral and political consequences, when a democratic State adopts the extra-legal methods of its opponents out of raison d'Etat." (13 May 2001, Martin Mansergh)

• IRISH TIMES (NEWSPAPER)

"In a remarkably rare combination of passion and objective clarity, Paddy Woodworth pieces together the labyrinthine story of how the methods used in the 1980s against ETA have left Spanish democracy embroiled in a bitter war. This is a painfully honest, as well as a compellingly readable book, which essentially shows that it is impossible to build a new world with the bricks of the old. It is as unput-downable as a thriller and written with a novelist's sensibility, yet never loses sight of the enormity of its subject. This is a complex and disturbing story magisterially deconstructed and retold. Woodworth's vivid prose conveys an evocative feel for many aspects of Basque life. It is based on personal observations and experience. One of the most important books about post-Franco Spain ever published." (26 May 2001, Paul Preston)

• IRISH TIMES (NEWSPAPER)

"Woodworth...crafts his tale brilliantly on a range of levels: as a cautionary, moral tale about the corruption of power, almost a classic Greek drama; as a taut, complex thriller; as an essential introduction to the emerging Spanish democracy, and as textbook treatment of both the uneasy relationship between socialism and nationalism, and of the contradictions inherent in terrorism, in this case of ETA and of its right-wing, state-backed counterpart, GAL. And then there is the series of finely crafted, enduring human portraits." (21 December 2003, Paddy Smyth)

• THE SUNDAY TRIBUNE (NEWSPAPER)

"Paddy Woolworth has written the definitive study of Spain's dirty war" (April 22 2001, Ciaran Carty - interview)

• HOT PRESS (MAGAZINE)

"To use the patois of the popular fiction novel, it is a ripping yarn. Better still, it is a flawlessly factual account of terrorist activity in the Basque Country." (May 2001, Joe Jackson - interview)

• ISSUES (MAGAZINE)

"A unique insight into the mindset and modus operandi of both terrorists and counter-terrorists in a dramatic narrative and provocative analysis." (May 2001, Marc Kelly - interview)