Review: Workmanlike Thriller
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 03 15, 2012
NOTE:  Please be aware that some of what I say here can be considered to be spoilers.  It's pretty hard to talk about a thriller or mystery without writing something that someone will object to, so you've been warned.Photographer Peter Conway has been estranged from his father for many years.  When Frank dies, an apparent suicide, Peter is all too happy to put paid to their troubled relationship.  But a series of events make Peter wonder if there isn't more to his father's death -- and life -- than he had imagined.Spin is a solid, workmanlike British conspiracy thriller that makes good use of some reliable tropes of the genre.  Steele gives us an Everyman in Peter Conway.  He's a photographer, not a civil servant or a spy, or even a journalist like his late father, and this actually makes the story more accessible in many ways.  Hitchcock used the Everyman character to very good effect in most of his films. There's also, obviously, conspiracy which is very popular these days, perhaps because paranoia has begun to invade even personal life.  There's computer hacking, which is almost de rigueur for thrillers these days, some surprising revelations about Peter's father, a little romance; and, surprisingly, Nazis.  Steele proves that Nazis can still be reliable hobgoblins if you're clever about how they're used. Finally there's the increasingly popular style of ending which suggests that it's not really the end at all.  Perhaps Steele intends a sequel, or perhaps he simply means to suggest that this kind of thing doesn't go away just because you've defeated the latest incarnation of a particular sort of evil, which is a very important lesson.  It also provides a nice frisson of discomfort.As with most specimens of the genre, where Spin is weakest is in the area of characterization.  Thrillers are necessarily plot-driven, and characterization can sometimes slow plot development.  I tend to like a bit more information about the characters than Steele offers, but I also recognize that being pursued, beaten and nearly killed really counts as all the motivation any character needs.  The plot itself is very contemporary, and is likely to hit home with anyone who follows the news these days.  It verges on science-fiction without ever actually tumbling over the line, making it just believable enough to be scary.The bottom line here is that while nothing in Spin dazzles, it's the sort of book that will engage people who love suspenseful, plot-heavy novels.  It delivers the goods for fans of the genre, and really, what more can you ask than a good read?