The author, Patrick Radden Keefe, is a journalist and nonfiction author. He has numerous writing awards, including the 2014 National Magazine Award for Feature Writing, which he won for “A Loaded Gun,” an article Keefe wrote for The New Yorker about a school shooter.

It took Keefe four years and multiple trips to Northern Ireland to research and write the story of Jean McConville’s abduction within the larger context of the Troubles. He also utilized archives in New York, Boston, Dublin, and throughout the United Kingdom. He interviewed many of the key modern characters personally.

In the final chapter of the book, Keefe introduces himself as a character in the story and recounts his experiences as researcher and journalist. The point of this shift in voice is to present his own theory on a key element of the unsolved murder mystery that grounds the story. 

Keefe can offer very few factual details about the events in the life of Jean McConville, and she is dead when the story begins. It is through the story of her abduction and murder, however, that Keefe illustrates the personal impact of the Irish Troubles on families.