This is a story about charm, passion and guile. About revenge, deceit and brutal determination. In short it is about the manipulation of ordinary people and the concealment of extraordinary events. But above all it is about human natureand how to exploit it, both for good and for evil. Or simply for hedonistic greed. As the 100th anniversary of the 1916 Easter Rising in Dublinlooms on Britain's uncertain horizon, a resurgent Irish Republican Army plans a spectacular attack to launch its latest and final campaign for a united Ireland. Its success depends on the skills and innate charisma of an IRA Cleanskin living and working under deep cover in London, and on themurderous and time-honored links of an IRA elder to senior Middle-Eastern terrorists. It is a marriage of convenience conceived in hell, and it spawns a scheme that would cause the devil himself to look away. Its defeat depends on the same skills and instincts in those pitted against them, and the intelligence machinery and sleight of hand of everyday counter-terrorism. Easter, Smoke and Mirrors is the first part of the Cleanskin Apologues. It puts stark images to every government's worstnightmare and asks unanswerable questions of trusting citizens. Digest and look around you. Do you know who your neighbors are?