Cold Monday by
Terence Strong
pbk out August 04
(Pocket Books)
at £6.99
A thriller rather than a straight crime book, though shooting lots of
people is certainly criminal. It's a mixture of Ludlum and Ian
Fleming, with an ex-SAS hero battling against an international
conspiracy in an unbelievable story that out-Bonds Bond.
Ed Coltrane, a veteran of dirty-tricks operations in Ulster and
Bosnia, is conned by MI6 into assassinating a nasty Serb in the
King's Road - with good cause, the said Serb having cut Coltrane's
wife down the middle with a chain-saw, an event which the author's
postscript said actually happened in Bosnia.
Ed is then approached by two girls, former army colleagues in
Ulster, to help a Euro-MP who is being threatened, as he is well on
the way to exposing major corruption in the EU. Throughout the
book, the author grinds a very large axe - quite possibly legitimately
- about the sinister implications of the European Union which he
alleges is now infiltrated by Mafia-like organisations and which is
covertly setting up a police state which will make Orwell's 1982
look like Blue Peter. In fact, in the aforesaid postscript, Terence
Strong enlarges on this theme and even offers a Website
(www.eufactsfigures.com) where you can keep an eye on the dirty
work in Brussels.
Coltrane and one of the girls (the other has been suffocated) plus a
sultry Parisian journalist, are chased across England by police, MI6
and the Euronasties, moving at great expense between lodgings and
hotels and succession of rental cars, until the dénouement where the
bullets fly fast. In spite of the total incredulity which the story
generates, it is a well-written and exciting read.
(
Bernard Knight
ex Home Office Pathologist and author of the highly acclaimed Crowner John series)
Cold Monday by
Terence Strong
