While hunting for the answers to the most complex terrorist case in British history, one man will uncover the greatest criminal deception of our time.
Terror, extremism and fear of the unknown,
Sometimes the answer is much closer to home.
The book starts out with D.I. Jake Flanagan out on a limb trying to foil what he correctly believes to be terrorists plotting an atrocity. He wakes up in hospital to the news that bombers have exploded bombs on the London Underground and a bus.
Jake works for the Metropolitan Police Anti-Terrorist Branch and is sent up to West Yorkshire as part of Operation Theseus to find out who was behind the bombings. He becomes frustrated as the investigation moves on at a snail’s pace. When his girlfriend, Claire, who works for the security service, comes up to Leeds with some secret intelligence for him about the bombings, Jake’s maverick side takes over and, without authorisation he goes about pursuing these leads. He ends up in dangerous territory, suspended from his job and losing most everything. Still he carries on, craving knowledge of what happened and justice.
This book at times feels so real. David Videcette, using his background of twenty years’ policing experience including counter-terror operations (he worked on the 7/7 bombings in London), brings this story to life so effectively and it’s up to you to decide what’s fact and what’s fiction. Insights into some police procedures and tricks of the trade like “never seat a prisoner behind the driver in a car” are obviously real and help to lull you into the sense that everything so easily could be.
Jake’s frustrations with the lack of communication between the security service and the police also rings true: “I don’t get how you can have all that intelligence and not see the wood for the trees. It was obvious.” A statement the general public often find themselves asking about the security services. How is it after every atrocity you know exactly where to go, but you don’t go beforehand?