Category: Thriller

Total Blackout

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Total Blackout by Alex Shaw is a page turner that grabs you in the first couple of pages.

Jack Tate is an MI6 agent and former SAS officer on vacation in Maine when a rogue Russian and Chinese taskforce triggers an electro-magnetic pulse device that wipes out all electrical and electronic equipment in the US (apparently this is also a side effect of a nuclear explosion). In the chaos that follows the leader of the Russian team is determined to settle several scores with those who he believes have insulted the Russian state and ultimately with Tate and his brother.

Total Blackout feels like it has been written to make into a Netflix type production and you can see further adventures for Tate and his brother. It’s not deep and it’s not that believable but it is fun and would make a good holiday read.

3/5

The Rhino Conspiracy

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The Rhino Conspiracy by Peter Hain is set in modern day South Africa, it combines a page turner about the battle against rhino poachers with a scathing critique of the corruption that pervaded South Africa in the post Mandela era.

Hain is well qualified to expose the corruption of the modern state but I was surprised at how good a thriller writer he is. This is really really good, I wonder what he will do next?

4/5

The House of Lamentations

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The House of Lamentations is the 5th in Shona Maclean’s much praised Seeker series.

It’s 1658, Damian Seeker is living under cover in Bruges keeping tabs on the royalist followers of the exiled King Charles who are scheming to restore Charles to the thrown. Meanwhile in London the Protector, Cromwell, is in the last days of his life and all around him are preparing for a power shift and a new leader.

The royalists have discovered that there is a spy within their midst they have no idea who it is and send their own spy to spy on Seeker’s spy. Complicated? Yes but Maclean weaves a complex plot around these characters while providing a fascinating and detailed understanding of life in 17th century Bruges and the politics of England and Europe.

The House of Lamentations is historical fiction at it’s very best. The publisher says this is the last in the series. I hope not!

4.5/5

Power Play

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Power Play by Tony Kent is a very readable thriller.

An aircraft is blown up halfway across the Atlantic, one of the passengers is the leading candidate in the forthcoming US Presidential election. The baggage handler, a Syrian refugee, who placed the bomb confesses but rapidly questions arise as to whether he is a terrorist or a stooge.

It soon becomes evident that forces close to the current President are trying to shut down the legal team defending the baggage handler and the intelligence agency that starts to investigate.

This a fast paced but really rather preposterous page turner. At the end my reaction was – “really?”. I can imagine this being script fodder for the production machines of Amazon or Netflix but as a read it leaves quite a bit to be desired.

2.5/5

Hitler’s Secret

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Hitler’s Secret by Rory Clements is a “what if?” spy thriller set in 1941.

Martin Bormann is desperately trying to locate and kill Hitler’s illegitimate daughter before Hitler and the rest of Germany learn about her existence. Tom Wilde an American academic based in Cambridge is recruited by British intelligence services and their US counterparts to get into Germany, find the child and get her to safety. Of course things aren’t as simple as they appeared, who are Tom’s allies and helpers in Germany? Why are they helping?

This tale of intrigue amongst the different factions of the German leadership, competition between the British and the US has plenty of twists and turns and is quite easy to read but overall it is both unbelievable and predictable. Might make a good film script for the streaming factories.

2.5/5

The Last Hours

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I used to be a big fan of Minette Walters, eagerly devouring each of her chilling psycho thrilled. But that was a good while ago and I haven’t read her for ages, with more edgy American and Scandi authors replacing her.

The Last Hours breaks with Walters past work, it is a historical novel set in the time of the Black Death. Lady Anne is the compassionate and strong willed mistress of the Devilish (yes really!) estate which is quarantined to protect against the plague after its brutal master has succumbed to the disease. The Last Hours combines the evolving relationship between Lady Anne and her mysterious steward Thaddeus with a vivid description of the spread of the plague and the wasteland surrounding the estate.

It is quite readable but not outstanding, the plot meanders in a somewhat predictable way to a climax which is then snatched away with a “to be continued”. I am not sure that I will bother to follow this through to conclusion.

3/5

Beneath a Scarlet Sky

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Beneath a Scarlet Sky by Mark Sullivan is a remarkable book, it tells the story of Pino Lella’s teenage years at the end of the war, based upon a series of interviews that Sullivan had with Lella towards the end of his life.

Lella’s war starts with him acting as a mountain guide/courier helping jews to escape from occupied Italy into Switzerland. He is “conscripted” into the German army by his family as a way of keeping him out of the from line and works as a driver and translator for one of the commanders of the 3rd Reich in Italy, this privileged position allows him to spy for the partisans.

As the war draws to a close and German forces are retreating the story climaxes in the chaos of the lawless days of retribution.

If ever a novel illustrates that fact can be stranger and more exciting than fiction, this is it. From early on it is captivating, terrifying and thrilling.

4.5/5

To Kill the President

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To Kill the President by Sam Bourne (Jonathan Freedland) is an incredibly timely and prescient novel.

There is no mention of the current US President but his persona runs through this novel,  you will recognise the Bannon, Priebus and Ivanka characters as well. This is crazy, scary fiction made more so by the fact that it is so believable in current circumstances.

The plot starts with a late night panic as the President endeavours to launch a nuclear strike against North Korea, well that could never happen in real life or could it?

You can’t put this down, it’s perfect holiday reading. It’s even more delicious if you have been reading Freedland’s columns for the Guardian over the last year

4/5

The Susan Effect

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The Susan Effect by Peter Hoeg is a political/conspiracy thriller set in Denmark.

Susan has a unique ability to get people to tell her their innermost secrets which she shares with her husband and their two children. When the family becomes involved in a life changing scandal in India she agrees to use her ‘power’ to gather information on the Future Committee for a secretive and sinister government fixer in return for getting the charges against her family dropped. Things rapidly get out of control as she starts to unearth the final reports of the Future Committee and the conspiracy behind it.

This is a rather far-fetched but quite readable book if you like conspiracy, mayhem and a bit of near magical super powers.

2.5/5

Crimson Lake

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Crimson Lake by Candice Fox is set in a small town outside of Cairns in Northern Australia.

Ted Conkaffey is an ex police officer accused of abducting and assaulting a teenage girl, the prosecution was abandoned but he is never cleared of the crime that he denies. He moves to Crimson Lake in an attempt to restart his life. Amanda Pharrell runs a private investigations agency in Crimson Lake after her release from a 10 year sentence for the brutal murder of her friend. this unlikely pair of private detectives are trying to solve the mystery of a missing author while at the same time their personal back stories are unwinding.

This is a tense mystery thriller, right to the end you are uncertain of the guilt of the detectives or the fate of the author. Crimson Lake bowls along at a good pace, I liked the characters and the treatment of the alleged child abductor by the local vigilantes is thought provoking.

Well worth a read, there is a second novel planned with these characters which I will look out for.

4/5