Former Swedish diplomat Andreas Norman’s new thriller is a powerful indictment of current espionage techniques in the West’s ongoing conflict with terrorism.
In spy-ridden Brussels, Bente Jensen, the head of Swedish Counter-Terrorism, receives damaging information regarding British MI6’s illicit covert activities in Syria.
Jensen, who seeks patterns in everything and trusts nothing, discovers that her old nemesis, Jonathan Green, MI6’s undercover Brussels station chief, is implicated. Green, with his career in jeopardy, feverishly attempts to minimise the fallout from the leak revealing his government’s “controlled use of death”. Green has been part of an MI6 conspiracy to hold, interrogate, torture and kill its political prisoners in a safe house in Syria. This damaging information has been leaked to Bente by a conscience-stricken British operative.
Eventually, both Green and Jensen end up risking their professional futures and sacrificing those they love in conscience-wrenching choices. Readers should be prepared for graphic scenes of physical torture and psychological intimidation. This thought-provoking thriller will leave readers pondering the question: can evil deeds ever justify the aim of preventing destruction or preserving the status quo?
This is a question that still baffled many politicians today.