As the UK struggles with a hopeless war in the Middle East, the worst recession in a hundred years and a fraud scandal which has rocked the government to its core, the Prime Minister is determined to host an unrivalled summer of sporting achievement at the London Olympics to propel the country into a new era.
Joe Moran, MP for Primrose Hill and keen long distance runner and sports fan, is among the many around the world eagerly anticipating the games and is delighted when he is asked to become minister for Sports and Heritage, heavily involved in the plans for the opening ceremony. It beats the tedium of life in Westminster as even meetings are less boring when the subject matter is sport. Less boring that is, until the first bomb explodes... and MI5 uncover a plot to kill thousands of people while the world watches on television.
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['Sweet baby Jesus'. Officer George Stanley wiped a fat sweaty hand across a sweaty face]***
(Robinson Publishing, 5 May 2012, first published 1 April 2012, 300 pages, ebook, #popsugarreadingchallenge 2020, a book with '20' or 'twenty' in the title, borrowed from @GlasgowLib via @OverDriveLibs)
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I'd never heard of the author before and didn't know what to expect. I really enjoyed this. I don't really like books that deal with terrorists and acts of terror. There's something almost too real about them, they seem more possible than endless books about serial killers and something unsettles me about fiction with terrorism at its core. Black manages to pull it off though. Many chapters have a flashback about a group of police wiping out a family of gun-toting fanatics. I enjoyed these and wondering where they were leading and what the connection to the main events in the book was. This connection is slowly revealed. Each chapter switches between the PM and his allies trying to prevent chaos and Joe who's been abducted by M15's prime suspect trying to find a way to turn the situation to her advantage. I like this structure.
