It is an ordinary day for ordinary people. Family breakfasts are under way, people are coping with good news and bad. Waiting to say goodbye to those they love and hello to those they desire.
For some it is not an ordinary day – it is the day when everything will change.
A bomb goes off in a shopping centre, then another at a train station, then something that at first seems unrelated – a siege at the Stanhope hotel in the heart of London.
Page by page, chapter by chapter, which are punchy, short, direct and keep the pace, the story unfolds. And quite frankly I was hooked which was why I read the book in a day and loved every minute of it.
It brings together a lot of research that at some points I felt I could have quite easily been watching something from a television news broadcast. In places it was even better than that as readers you are at the heart of the hostages, the terrorists and the authorities. Something no broadcast would ever capture.
Well written, with enough depth for all the characters that you started to sympathise and empathise with them at different points throughout the book. I do not think I have read a book where I have felt my heart beating so much as I was desperate to know what happens. Even the stomach turning descriptions of the horrific injuries, did not even want me to stop reading.
This is the first Kernick book I have read and it will certainly not be the last. If you are new to ‘thriller’ novels, and I am somewhat late to this particular party then I suggest you read this novel.
Thank you to the publisher for allowing me the opportunity to read this book.
The books is out now in hardback and on kindle.
I am off to add Simon Kernick to my list of authors to read and have plenty to catch up on. Wonderful!
The Book Jotter 