Adam Colclough lives and works in the West Midlands, he writes regularly for a number of websites, one day he will get round to writing a book for someone else to review.
When the plans for a high-tech weapon are stolen hacker and MI6 agent Brigitte Sharp is sent to Paris on a recovery mission that goes badly wrong. Meanwhile a faked video of a former US president calling on right wing extremists to assist a network of militias in Europe goes viral on the internet.
The two incidents are connected and will pit the CIA and a galaxy of European security agencies, each with an agenda of their own, against a plot that could throw the whole continent into chaos. To stop a new dark age descending Sharp must infiltrate the secretive Patrios network, whilst at the same time battling enemy agents and her own demons.
Antony Johnson delivers the goods in this third outing for Brigitte Sharp, weaving together the rise of right-wing populism and the manipulative power of social media to create an atmosphere of tension and paranoia. The action is relentless and the more, seemingly, outlandish aspects of the plot check uncomfortably closely against things that if they haven’t happened, very easily could.
Brigitte Sharp is the ideal agent to be picking her way through the maze of modern horrors, by turns as tough as steel and painfully aware of her own vulnerability. Every few years there is a debate about how update the Bond franchise, maybe it is time to pension the old chap off and install Sharp in his place as an agent more relatable to out troubled times.
