The Black Widow - Niamh O'Connor

When Tom Nevin was brutally murdered in
Jack White's Inn on the morning of 19 March 1996 there was widespread mourning for the man known as a 'gentle giant'. And none seemed as grief-stricken as his widow, Catherine. She stood by the graveside holding a single red rose, the classic symbol of a lost love. But even as that picture occupied the front page of the nation's newspapers, the rumours had started.

Four years later Catherine Nevin stood in the dock and listened impassively as a jury found her guilty of murdering her husband, and guilty on three counts of soliciting others to murder. The trial had kept the entire country enthralled, as every day more bizarre stories emerged: contract killers, money laundering, the IRA, sexual affairs, plastic surgery, contacts in high places. It had all the ingredients of a bestselling thriller, but this was real life, and with a real victim.

The Black Widow is the story of a woman who wanted it all and didn't care how she got it. Niamh O'Connor, a journalist who sat through every day of the record-breaking trial, explores the personality behind the glamorous mask, the real motives for the murder, and, in a series of revealing interviews, unravels the web of intrigue, deception and violence that brought the woman who once gave deportment classes to schoolchildren to the cells of Mountjoy.