Peter Hanington

I had enjoyed Peter Hanington’s previous novels featuring the esteemed cynical journalist, William Carver, and this latest instalment may be the best so far. Hanington has as strong a journalistic pedigree or provenance as William Carver, having worked for years as a producer of BBC Radio 4’s flagship news programme, Today. Craver is one of the BBC’s most senior correspondents, and has been reporting for Today for many years.

This time he finds himself back in London, struggling to adjust to a lengthy period back home. Working main ly on his own, he has drifted away from his former colleague Patrick, who had worked closely with him as producer for many of his most successful overseas assignments. Having slowly recovered from a severe injury incurred on his last venture with Carver, Patrick has been reassigned to more conventional desk-based duties in another part of the Corporation.

Following leads from his extensive network of contacts, Carver finds himself reviewing the life and work of Clive Winner, an Australian entrepreneur whose fame and fortune had derived from various successful projects in what he had termed geoengineering. Closer investigation shows that Winner’s ambitions may have led to his business empire overextending itself. Meanwhile, various mishaps have befallen scientists engaged in Winner’s ecologically-learning projects, including a pilot who had been helping with an experimental approach to cloud seeding.

Hanington uses his experience of handling correspondents’ investigations, and balancing content in the country’s flagship news programme, adroitly, producing a tense thriller which never relaxes its grasp on the reader’s attention. He offers a dazzling blend of plausibility and excitement, in a series that improves with every new instalment (and the first volume was more than good enough to begin with).… (plus d'informations)

Like his protagonist (really a more accurate term in this case than ‘hero’), William Carver, Peter Hanington is himself a veteran reporter for the BBC Radio 4 flagship news programme Today. He is, as a consequence, able to give a clear insight in to the vnaities and internal hierarchies that beset a leading news broadcaster. The infighting with the programme staff is less evident in this novel than it was in the previous books, A Single Source and A Dying Breed, which featured tautly plotted thrillers set against the respective backdrops of the Arab Spring risings in Cairo and the aftermath of the War on Terro in Afghanistan, but is still lurjking in the background.

Carver is a report of the old school, primarily concerned with nailing facts and getting the story right than with making a self-aggrandising splash. However, after a stressful couple of years, as this novel opens he is back in London, giving lessons to the BBC’s new intake of apprentice reporters. Meanwhile, jis long suffering sound recordist, Patrick, is in Hong Kong, helping other BBC correspondents to report on the student riots against the Chinese authorities sparked by the threat to democracy. While seeking interviews, and capturing useful background sound recordings, Patrick meets the students’ leader. He has clearly given some thought to his role, and is eager to tap Partick for any insights he can give as to why other risings around the world, such as the Arab Spring, might not have worked.

Meanwhile, the story follows the leading figures of a global hi-tech company that has almost cornered the market in search engine technology, and is keen to diversify into as many other areas of daily life as it can. It has a network of local operatives who are prepared to take drastic steps to oil the wheels of commerce. One such, Jags, is flitting between Chile, where he hovers around a rural mining community, and California, where the tech giant is based. The depiction of the hug corporation is terrifying, and has certainly made me wonder more closely than previously about the trails I leave all over the cyber world every day.

As always with peter Hanington’s novels, there are multiple threads to the story, all seamlessly woven together. I shan’t try to offer a synopsis of the plot – it is far too intricate to describe, although it is so convincing that the reader is quickly absorbed. All together , the book offers a pleasing mix of sound plot, very plausible and empathetic characters, and a sinuous storyline that never fails to surprise.

I hope that this is going to continue as a series.… (plus d'informations)

This was the first outing for BBC war correspondent, William Carver. Carver is jaded, cynical and a bit of a maverick. He is also incredibly difficult to work with, as a growing string of ex-producers have learned to their personal cost. He is, however, also tenacious, committed and difficult to deflect once he has scented a story. As this novel opens, he is based in Kabul, reporting on the struggle to support a new independent, self-sustaining regime following the defeat of the Taliban. After years of devastating war, the country is fragile, and its economy is fragile, and Kabul is still subject to random terror attacks. One such happens as the novel opens, and a tailor’s shop is hit by a suicide bombing. Among the casualties is a local politician.

By chance, William Carver is nearby, and is one of the first on the scene. Having given what help he could to those wounded in the attack, he takes stock of his surroundings and makes various noted about his first impressions. His years of journalistic cynicism make him suspicious of anything that smacks of coincidence, and he wants to know why the politician should have been there at the exact time of the attack. Had he been a chance victim, or a planned target?

Peter Hanington builds his story carefully, and obviously knows his subject matter well. There are fragile relationships all around, for instance between the American and UK military figures, the different security and intelligence services, but also between competing elements of the BBC new hierarchy. There is also concern echoing through the corridors of power in London, and it emerges that there are sinister commercial interests at stake. Hanington stitches all of these components into a compelling and convincing story.… (plus d'informations)

William Carver is a bit of a dinosaur. With a long career as a hard-bitten foreign correspondent behind him, he may seem jaded and a bit of a Luddite to some of his younger, more tech savvy colleagues. He has also managed to alienate many of his managers over the years, and mention of his name in the higher circles of the BBC news hierarchy now merely prompts raised eyebrows and sighs of resignation.

He remains, however, a fine journalist with a great nose for the next big story. As this novel opens in early 2011, the next big story is the Arab Spring, and more specifically, the risings in Egypt that have drawn thousands of protestors to rail against the government as they gather in Cairo’s Tahrir Square. Carver has managed to establish a network of contacts among the local population, and finds himself receiving advanced notification of several demonstrations. This has, in turn, made him a watched figure. Through those largely anonymous contacts, he comes into possession of a key piece of evidence that all is not as it seems in the authorities’ response to the risings.

Meanwhile, two teenage brothers are trying to escape from their restricted life in Eritrea. Their grandfather, who has established himself as a sort of local fixer, manages to buy them places in a trafficking operation. The boys are assured that, because of their grandfather’s relative prominence in Asmara, they will receive VIP treatment on the secret journey to Europe. This is, however, a lie, an they have to share the same plight of their fellow travellers, crammed into a small truck and driven across the Eastern Sahara, where they are susceptible to discovery by the authorities, falling prey to bandit raid, or simply succumbing to hunger, thirst and the effects of being stuck in too small a lorry with other would-be fugitives.

Peter Hanington succeeds in maintaining the excitement throughout this book. The principal storyline, about William Carver, and the back plot about the escape from Eritrea are masterfully interwoven, and the tension mounts relentlessly. This is one of the best political thrillers I have read for a long time.… (plus d'informations)