dw marshall's Reviews > To Kill the Truth

A thriller for our time.

I read some bad reviews of this book that accused it of being too cerebral, too philosophical. They actually are the reason I found it so good. It moved along a reasonable pace but without the usual stream of frantic action sequences, and it was its slower, wordier moments that made it a real treat. There is one particular chapter that is considerably longer than the rest featuring a long dialogue between a disillusioned nihilist ex-politico and the hero(ine) Maggie Costello which I thoroughly enjoyed as it took head-on much of the current mess with fake news, the warping of history for power and the right's preference not to argue but to just vehemently deny. It's a novel for our time and, to my mind anyway, an above average addition to the Bourne oeuvre.
I deduct one star merely for the fact that the actual nature of the crime/crimes being committed are kind of unlikely, but I understand why Jonathan Freedland invented them as a kind of McGuffin in order to provide bones on which to hang the flesh of the frighteningly possible imaginary world he depicts.
A very good read.