Henry Porter - Remembrance Day

Review by Malcolm Martland Nov 2008
This is one of my charity shop buys – one of the better ones – it is a thriller with a very gruesome beginning – a bus bomb in London – written before the atrocities we’ve seen since.
Con Lindow is waiting for his brother Eamonn when the bus explodes – but unbeknown to him this brother has been using his identity to cover his tracks. The story is told mainly from Con’s point of view – but later in the story is taken up by a sympathetic policeman, Commander Foyle
Rhodes, the bomber is a former army officer who was targeted by the IRA in a bombing attack at Droy Cemetery with the loss of some of his crew. Since leaving the army he has become freelance – sometimes even working as an agent for the UK security services. But he intends to get revenge on the perpetrators of the cemetery explosion and plants a bomb to kill his main suspect Eamonn Lindow – but he makes it look as if the bomb is the work of the IRA. Several other bombs follow – apparently targeted by ecowarriors against waste companies – but the biggest target is destined for the coded Axiom Day. The security services, MI5, MI6, the army the SAS, the Police all jostle to track Rhodes and claim credit but also to cover up what involvement they may have had with him in the past. Rhodes is killed by the SAS but leaves a legacy of computer controlled and mobile phone triggered explosive devices – culminating in a potential attack on Remembrance Day at the Cenotaph – foiled of course and by the appropriately named commander Foyle.

A much better read than I expected a- I would certainly recommend this as a stocking filler.