Unbroken

Secrets, Lies and Enduring Love

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Unbroken

By: Mary Attenborough, Michael Gallagher

Narrated by: Mary Attenborough, Gaz Kerr

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‘Our outside door came crashing in. Deafening thumps, steel banging on steel and shrill, piercing whistles filled the hallway. Faraway voices called out in the dark: “Armed police.” Others, coming nearer, shouted orders: “Get down on the floor.” ’

On 28 October 1996 Glaswegian Michael Gallagher is arrested in an armed dawn raid on the London flat he shares with long-time partner, Mary Attenborough. Accused of playing a role in the IRA mortar attack on Heathrow Airport in March 1994, Michael proclaims his innocence. Mary meanwhile throws herself into the battle to free him and highlight what she sees as just another example of British ‘justice’ getting it wrong.

Told in the alternating voices of the two authors, the dramatic story unfolds with Michael struggling against the harsh conditions of incarceration, while Mary focuses on organizing his legal defense, battling to stay positive in the face of soul-destroying setbacks and emotional hardships.

Yet behind it all lies a secret that could tear the couple apart. How can their love survive?

Mary AttenboroughMichael GallagherMary AttenboroughGaz KerrClear Voice Audio

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Unbroken stayed with me for reasons I didn't expect. It has the pace of a thriller, and the Heathrow bombings give it a genuinely tense backdrop, but that's not what I kept thinking about afterwards. What stuck was Michael and Mary — two people trying, imperfectly and stubbornly, to hold onto each other through something most of us would struggle to even imagine surviving.
Told from Michael's side, the book also opens a door onto a world few people ever see: what it's actually like to have your liberty taken away. It could easily have been grim throughout, and there is real darkness in it, but it's shot through with moments of warmth and more humour than I expected, which somehow makes everyone in it feel true to life rather than like characters in a case study.

Mostly, though, I came away thinking about choices — the ones we make without knowing what they'll cost us later, and how long the shadow of a single decision can stretch. Unbroken isn't really the thriller it first looks like. It's a book about love, about the mistakes people make trying to protect it, and about whether love can survive those mistakes at all.