'The Burnings 1920' by Pearse Lawlor from Lombard Park explains in detail how the police officer's assassination was ordered by Republican Leader Michael Collins, who believed he was involved in the murder of the Sinn Fein Lord Mayor of Cork Tomas McCurtain, his close friend and confidante.

The book gives one of the most detailed accounts to date of the mayhem in Lisburn which began within hours of the shooting but has not in the past received as much attention from historians as the violence which claimed hundreds of lives in Belfast during the period 1920 to 1922.