Madam, - I think Andy Pollak's review of my book The Fateful Split: Catholics and the Royal Ulster Constabulary, (Book Reviews, February 21st) is most patronising and unfair.
He criticises me at length for not writing the book he thinks I should have written - about the experience of Catholics in the RUC - rather than reviewing the book I actually did write.
His claim that the title of the book is a misnomer is similarly founded on his unfulfilled expectations rather than the central thesis of the book that the longstanding fateful split between Catholics and the RUC led inevitably to the root-and-ranch reform of policing in Northern Ireland.
While some of it indeed covers the same ground as my 1989 study of the RUC, A Force under Fire, this book contains a considerable amount of previously unpublished, insightful material that was not available at that time and recounts the recent transition of the police from RUC to PSNI. To dismiss it as merely a re-working and updating of the earlier book is therefore unjustifiable.- Yours, etc.,
CHRIS RYDER, Belfast.