Night Heron, a taut espionage thriller

Phrases such as “taut writing,” “extreme tension,” “involved plot” seem to be in use for almost every book on the market today that concerns itself with spies and intelligence gathering.  Perhaps even that hoary old cliche “torn from the headlines!” will rear up.  But I have to tell you I found “Night Heron” by Adam Brookes to be all of those and more. I neglected chores, put off other delightful pastimes and generally abandoned myself to this book.  The author is a journalist with experience in the East and Mid-east and he brings an authenticity to his writing that cannot be denied.

 

Prisoner 5995  escapes a Chinese Labor Reform camp after twenty years incarceration, and returns to Beijing.  There he makes contact with a freelance journalist, Mangan, using him as a conduit to send a message to British Intelligence.  The message comes to the desk of Trish Patterson, late of Army Intelligence but now newly in the civilian side.  To her, a former intelligence source, named Peanut (an interesting play on the prisoner’s real name), has resurfaced after a twenty year hiatus.  Mangan is terrified of the contact fearing the Chinese as he already walks a thin line because of his reporting on the “Fellowship.” And Peanut wants what is owed him by the British.

 

Proposing a one-off job Peanut promises more top secret information to come. But is this really Peanut making this offering?  The Brits can’t be sure.  Perhaps he is a “dangle” trying to set up either Mangan or even the British Intelligence Service.  But the proposed information is important and after a series of high level meetings involving several Departments the decision to go ahead is made.

 

But in this age of digitized data espionage is no longer conducted by slipping into offices and photographing secret papers.  A new approach is necessary and Patterson has it in the form of a “gadget” developed by one of their outside contractors.  Sent to Peanut through Mangan the plot enters a new and even tenser section as the “gadget” is put to work and retrieves far more than the designers apparently intended. General jubilation all around.  But a new force is felt lurking in the background, who or what cannot be determined.

 

Things go awry for both Peanut and Mangan when an American infatuated with a lovely Taiwanese girl inadvertently lets slip a piece of information that she reports to her Chinese masters and they must run for their lives.  A hurried contact with Patterson and she sets up an extraction point but can they get there ahead of both the Chinese and the secretive lurkers?

 

If you are any kind of a spy, espionage, secret service type of fan, get this book.  If you are not a fan read it anyway and find out how a well written spy thriller can keep you up all night!

Review of "The American Mission"

Matthew Palmer is a twenty year veteran of the U.S. Foreign Service.  He has served in posts around the world in this capacity, most notably in the development of the Kimberly Process whereby diamonds from Africa could be correctly certified as to whether or not they were “conflict free.”  Certainly a solid base upon which a rousing adventure yarn could be built.

 

We find our hero, Alex Baines, toiling in the visa line in an obscure US Embassy in Conakry, Guinea, Africa.  A rising star he rises no more having watched a tribe of Africans in Darfur being wiped out by rebels and the UN peacekeeping force simply allowing it to happen and allowing his umbrage at that fact interfere with his potential success.  We know he loves Africa because he has adopted a young black girl whom he rescued from the genocide.

 

Rescued from this oblivion and given another chance by his former mentor, he returns full of hope only to discover to his dismay that rampant corruption exists in the government of the Congolese country to which he is posted.  As is the fad now among adventure writers, a US company, a mining company in this case, is deeply involved and determined to destroy all greenery within view in their desire to rip from the earth the valuable resources that lie under the ground.

 

Combining efforts with a beautiful young woman, Marie Tsiolo, who wishes to bring her tribal village into the 21st century by teaching them mining techniques, Alex discovers that not only is the government and the mining company corrupt and bent on ecological destruction but his mentor, the Ambassador, as a member of a shadowy group, is a guiding hand behind all this nefariousness.  What is particularly egregious is that the company wants to destroy Marie’s village in its process of mining the copper.

 

Rebels in the pay of the mining company attempt to take Marie’s village but another rebel group assist in the defense.  Perhaps I should not call the defenders rebels because rebels are warlike, piratical and untrustworthy, except, of course, for those which are our allies, who are romantic, gallant and heroic.

 

In any case the book does pick up in action towards the last third with a few narrow escapes and little straining to make ecological or other politically correct points.  Suffice it to say Alex does well at the end, marries the beautiful girl and settles in for a calm reflective life in the saved village watching his daughter grow.