Review: A Great English Spy Thriller
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 06 18, 2014
This is a great book. The story is timely, important, and relevant. Not only does the author tell a great murder story involving spy agencies but he also addresses the moral issues and the privacy issues of the government's right to monitor electronic communications for national security versus individual rights to privacy. On the surface the story is about a business executive Chris Hammond, the financial manager of a small software company, who is murdered one night in his home, in Brighton, England. Chris's brother, Bill, lives in Rome and works for MI6, the British spy agency. He comes home to help Jenny, Chris's wife, deal with the tragedy, and he begins his own investigation of the murder. The software company where Chris worked is in the final stages of development of an encryption technology that will secure Internet communications and prevent the NSA and England's CGHQ from monitoring private citizens and corporations Internet communications.Bill Ward does an excellent job of character development and links many of the characters together through past and present sexual relationships with Chris's wife, Jenny. The author spends a lot of time describing the scenes of the book and the characters. But he keeps the story moving along, taking many twists and turns, and keeping the reader guessing.This is a very well written book, about a very timely intelligence issue of the power of governments to use electronic surveillance for national security versus the right to privacy of private citizens.I highly recommend this book.