Lee Allen's Blog - Posts Tagged "cold-war"

Black Sunday by Thomas Harris

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Thomas Harris' debut novel centres around a terrorist plot on American soil and the international effort to hunt down the terrorists.

Members of Black September, a terrorist group, are making the final arrangements for an attack within the United States. Ambushed in Beirut as part of an Israeli-led mission, their numbers are severely depleted. But, underestimated by those who brought down the cell, Dahlia Iyad escapes with her life and returns to America to continue facilitating the planned attack.

Michael Lander, an ex-marine and Vietnam veteran, feeling betrayed by the American government after his years of service and what he was subjected to as a prisoner of war, is determined to seek revenge in a demonstration that will also claim maximum casualties. Together, he and Dahlia plot to construct and detonate a bomb that will claim millions of lives.

David Kabakov, an agent with Mossad, Israel's intelligence agency, travels to America, determined to hunt down the surviving members of the terror group and foil their plot when it becomes clear that the mission in Beirut has not neutralised the threat.

Character-driven rather than action-driven, the novel's shining moments are the detailed explorations of the characters' psychology, backstories and personal relationships, reminiscent of Harris' later psychological thrillers. With a backdrop of the global political climate of the 1970's - this is the midst of the Cold War and in the aftermath of the Vietnam War (a conflict that drew in both the US and USSR) - you are also immediately struck by how little the world has changed; conflict in the Middle East continues to this day - significantly the conflict between Israel and Palestine; and between extremist Islamist terror groups and the West, significantly the US. Terror attacks over the last twenty years, notably 9/11, lend a chilling plausibility to events and the novel does not suffer for reading it over four decades later.

In a race against time, Kabakov hunts the terrorists to the eleventh hour, building to a dramatic action-packed climax as the terror plot unfolds. A gripping political thriller that hooks until the very end, 'Black Sunday' is an early demonstration of Harris' skill at exploring the horrors human beings are capable of inflicting on each other.



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1989 by Val McDermid

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Allie Burns returns in pursuit of moral and social justice.

Burnt out and emotionally exhausted, Allie is determined to rekindle her passion for investigative journalism with an exposé on the failure of medical institutions to care for the sick and dying.

Through her investigation, Allie stumbles upon an experimental drugs trial exploiting society’s vulnerable despite evidence to suggest the drugs are unsafe.

Her determination to expose the truth leads Allie into peril beyond the Iron Curtain, while an intricate plot for murder comes to fruition at home.

'1989' is the second book in Val McDermid's series featuring journalist Allie Burns. We catch up with Allie a decade since we last saw her, and a lot has changed in her life. Having relocated from Edinburgh to Manchester, she is now a small cog in a media empire, the dream she realised of becoming an investigative reporter having been dashed with her paper’s acquisition by publishing mogul Ace Lockhart. No longer content with her job; her exposure to the raw emotion of others simply to turn over reporting for her managers has taken its toll and she has become disenchanted, her job satisfaction steadily ebbing away, while she still dreams of putting her passion and skills to work for something that matters. Allie is a superb character and I love the passion she brings to her work. Also, in refreshing juxtaposition to the darkness of the plot, she is in a stable, healthy relationship with her partner, Rona – all the more refreshing to witness a lesbian couple at a story's heart, which even today still feels a rarity.

In an authentic journalistic thriller, McDermid once again demonstrates her prowess at intricate plotting, with a plethora of genre themes and character perspectives explored. The novel delves into the height of the HIV/AIDS pandemic and the beginning of the end of the Soviet Union, as well as insights into the aftermath of the Lockerbie bombing and the travesty of the Hillsborough disaster, while the shadow of the horror of the Holocaust lingers across Europe. Allie’s investigations are both fascinating and emotive, the exploration of the treatment of HIV/AIDS victims a piece of retrospective investigative journalism beneath this layer of fiction, while the explorations into Soviet satellites perfectly evoke the social unrest, stirring of rebellion and hope for revolution; the chilling threat the regime poses and Allie's realisation of danger.

With subtle displays of prejudice in the underlying presence of sexism, homophobia and racism, there is also social commentary – whether in the hierarchical capitalism of the West’s business empires or in the East’s contemporary communist regime, no matter a society’s state system or political philosophy, discrimination and mistreatment appear to be universal, albeit on different scales at different times. Looking back to history and the ramifications of extreme nationalism and fascism solidifies the concept that perhaps we’re never getting this right, with the ghosts of these mistakes still lingering today – some of them made afresh. At its core, this is a story about humanity in both its frailty and its endurance.

Having highly anticipated ‘1989’ ever since enjoying the opening installment ‘1979’, it proved to be as brilliant as expected; intensely gripping from the opening scenes and also incredibly moving – particularly in the stories of the HIV/AIDS victims and the fate of a Polish village during the Second World War. There is so much depth beneath the pages, while the story maintains its lightning pace throughout, back and forth between character perspectives and revelations until its satisfying conclusion.

Blending historical fiction, detective fiction, and political intrigue, ‘1989’ is a riveting, atmospheric thriller, as timely and relevant to the present day as its eponymous year and the history it delves into. I cannot wait to see what the next decade has in store for Allie.



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