THRILLER REVIEW: The Agent Runner - Simon Conway

Release Date: 23/09/14
Publisher:  Pembury Publishing

SYNOPSIS:

Ed found it difficult to explain why he felt such a strong allegiance to Britain, perhaps because he found it difficult to define what it meant to be British. British by birth, foreign by descent and agnostic by conviction, Edward Henry Malik is an MI6 agent-runner. For four years he has been running an agent codenamed Nightingale inside the ISI, Pakistan’s Hydra-headed spying agency. Then, in the aftermath of the death of Osama bin Laden, Nightingale is unmasked and Ed’s world dramatically falls apart. Dismissed from MI6 and with his reputation in tatters, Ed returns to his roots in the immigrant enclave of Whitechapel in London’s East End. He finds a job at a freight forwarding office and unexpectedly falls in love with the proprietor’s daughter. It seems as if he has finally found respite from his demons. But you can’t escape your past. Ed knows too much and he has come to the attention of the Hidden Hand – Pakistan’s legendary spy of spies – Major-General Javid Aslam Khan. From the teeming city of Lahore to the anarchic tribal areas bordering Afghanistan, with a plot to detonate the dirtiest bomb imaginable, The Agent Runner carves a dramatic arc across modern Pakistan and reaches a thunderous climax in the mountains of the Hindu Kush.


REVIEW:

OK, whilst we do love a thriller here at Falcata Times a lot of the time they’re written by people who just look at what they think makes a great thriller. Here we have a book that not only hits all the marks for genre fans but one that is written by a man that has lived a military life and knows how the various institutions within work. Whilst for some, this title with its themes may be a little close to the bone, the author has created a thriller that not only will have readers glued to the pages but one that will generate a lot of thoughts as some of the current news articles meet head on within the titles pages.

All round a book that has the clipped prose of a military man that works exceedingly for the title alongside an overall arc that has a great many twists will al round give you a read that whilst making you feel a little uncomfortable as a voyeur all round will hopefully give you a better look at a secret war that many can allude to but few can comprehend on such a scale. Magic.