Knife Edge by Simon MayoMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
KNIFE EDGE is a thriller about terrorism with a breathless opening which rivals anything I have read in the genre as, in 29 minutes one morning in May, a series of attacks leaves 7 London commuters dead. In the Canary Wharf offices of the IPS news agency, Famie Madden and her fellow journalists, begin to realise that the killings have been coordinated and the victims are colleagues in the agency's Investigation team.
Simon Mayo, a radio and TV presenter, who presents my favourite film review show on BBC Radio 5, is a fine writer. The early chapters detailing the killings and their immediate aftermath are tense and claustrophobic, and Mayo's descriptions of an early morning London into which panic and fear erupt, are intensely vivid and convincing. The scenes following this are less riveting as the story alternates between Famie's attempt to protect herself and her family, while also attempting to identify those responsible for her colleagues' deaths, and scenes set in the terrorist cell. Here the story slows and the constant references to the terrorists as 'The Leader', 'The Woman' and "The Student' are a little clumsy. The book does lift again with a climactic confrontation with the terrorists which, while not reaching the heights of the initial chapters and being, perhaps, a little formulaic, does bring the novel to a satisfying conclusion.
View all my reviews
No comments:
Post a Comment