Malachi O’Doherty deserves praise for journeying into the interior world of Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams. This unauthorised biography of the great Irish republican survivor seeks to psychoanalyse Adams like no other book before. It is a journey into a heart of darkness and in particular the dark secrets that were only unlocked in 2009 about Adams’s abusive father, and the shadow that cast on the entire family.

The author is critical of Adams’s role in support of the IRA’s “armed struggle”, but is also scrupulously fair in noting that without him there would be no ceasefire, no peace process, no movement from violence into constitutional politics. One of the most striking revelations in this book is how, from even the 1980s, the British security and political establishment saw Adams’s survival at the top of the republican movement as essential in directing the organisation away from armed insurrection. Cynically, as O’Doherty reveals, others were targeted by loyalist paramilitaries so that Adams could remain in power.

• Gerry Adams: An Unauthorised Life by Malachi O’Doherty is published by Faber (£14.99). To order a copy for £12.74 go to guardianbookshop.com or call 0330 333 6846. Free UK p&p over £10, online orders only. Phone orders min p&p of £1.99