Fatal Schism

By R.Z. Sheppard

FATHER AND SON

by Peter Maas

Simon & Schuster; 316 pages; $18.95

The Guinness Book of World Records does not have to look further than the sponsor's backyard to find a candidate for the oldest struggle for independence. One character in Peter Maas' richly layered novel of Paddys and Provos says the Irish have been going at it since the 12th century. Tragedies tend to turn into romances over that length of time. Rough madness is temporized by art.

Or at least good craft. Maas, who has skillfully dovetailed law-and-disorder in best sellers like Serpico and The Valachi Papers, proves adept at joining history to melodrama and to convincing plot twists with slightly implausible characterizations. A middle-aged New York City adman named McGuire turns into a modified James Bond to investigate the disappearance of a headstrong son, a Harvard student who was mixed up with running guns to the I.R.A. McGuire's metamorphosis may strain credulity, but his motives are authentically rooted in strong parental emotions.

These play well against the political passions of terrorists in Northern Ireland and their Irish-American supporters. Fanatical hatred tends to homogenize characters while removing their interesting elements. Their actions, however, are hard to ignore. A daring raid on a Boston National Guard armory nets the boyos a cache of M-16s, 40-mm grenade launchers, heavy machine guns and a wardrobe of flak jackets. Getting this arsenal to Belfast involves the cooperation of members of Boston's Irish underground and I.R.A. sympathizers in the U.S. Customs Department.

The heroic adman learns that his son was set up to preserve the effectiveness of a British-run mole in the I.R.A. Maas cuts a clear line between his sympathy for the Irish cause and his aversion to cold-blooded violence. There is ice, too, in the veins of Britain's counterterrorists, and hypocrisy in the Republic of Ireland, whose constitution includes all of the Emerald Isle in its national territory. As one insider puts it, "It was an open secret that given its domestic economic woes, the last thing the republic's leadership wanted was to take on the burden of the six northern counties." This is a good story well told, with verve, pathos and unavoidable complexity.