Unknown Unknowns by Adam Bromley
PIQWIQ (e-book), 2014
342 pages
http://piqwiq.co.uk/piqwiq-adam-bromley-unknown-unknowns.html
I was given a free copy in exchange for an honest review.
BLURB FROM THE COVER
The debut novel by Adam Bromley is a globetrotting thriller laced with comic twists and turns. Kat Foster is a junior diplomat who faces dismissal after punching an American captain into a mound of profiteroles. She gains a second chance thanks to her boss and a US intelligent agent. Her mission is simple: travel to Ozerkistan to debrief a prisoner who contacted a US embassy. He claims to have valuable information to trade in return for his freedom. The only snag is that Ozerkistan does not officially exist.
Kat must voyage into the unknown but she is not alone in her quest; in Moscow General Berezin intercepts the prisoner’s message. Berezin vows to reach the captive first, to prevent him trading the Pandora formula for an amnesty. Meanwhile Kat’s boss, Sir John Etherington decides to follow her, convinced that the American agent is playing a double game. These characters collide in Ozerk City; will Kat prevail against the odds?
EXTRACT
No one ever dreams of being a chemical-weapons engineer when they are young. When Vasily was five years old he wanted to be an engine driver, inspired by the slow-moving freight trains that rolled past his apartment window every afternoon. At eight, he proudly declared to his parents that he wished to be a fighter pilot, and not of just any aircraft; Vasily was going to fly the Mig-27, then at the cutting edge of Soviet aeronautics. At eleven, he decided a cosmonaut was the only true calling for an ambitious Soviet youth and duly announced his intention of becoming captain of the Soyuz Space Station. Days after his thirteenth birthday, puberty arrived like a cosmonaut’s capsule slamming into the outer atmosphere. His fantasies of space walking in zero gravity were displaced by feverish imaginings of what the girls in his class might look like naked. Never in all his boyhood fantasies, from train driver to his classmate Natalya’s nether regions, did Vasily imagine he would design chemical weapons for a living. In fact, he suspected that in the secretive, noxious history of chemical warfare, few, if any, of the scientists involved had chosen their career path. It was something that just happened to you, like chickenpox or being struck by lightning. Life was like that in the USSR; things happened to you.
REVIEW
I really enjoyed Unknown Unknowns. Bromley offers something quite different and original. Unknown Unknowns is a different sort of crime novel, for me anyway and I’ve never read anything quite like it before. Bromley injects some comedy into his debut novel without overkill or the comedy being ridiculous or out of place. The funny moments worked perfectly. Unknown Unknowns opens strongly with a lot of drama and the narrative is quite fast paced. Bromley carries this pace, drama and tension all the way through Unknown Unknowns. The novel held my attention on every page. I found myself laughing and sitting with my jaw scraping the floor in equal measures. Unknown Unknowns had lots of twists and turns and comic capers. I would highly recommend Unknown Unknowns for anyone wanting a crime novel a little bit different. I had a great time with this novel.
RATING
