Thriller

A little book I've had salted away for quite some time, it took the sad death of Bill Green to get me to stop dipping into and out of it, and sit down and read it.  Having finished it, the quote from Mungo McCallum on the back sums up the political component: 

"Spells out in blistering openness the excesses and dilemmas that characterised Australian politics."

But there's also a little more to this book, knowing, from chatting to the author, that part of the action - something about a plucky Australian going up against a CIA bloke who eventually went on to be something biggish in American Politics ... well it makes the reading of this book even more tantalising.  How much of this is truth and how much is fiction?  It's impossible to pick the lines (if there are any).

Bill's style is very tongue in cheek, very irreverent, extremely funny and greatly missed.

When it comes to writing military intelligence, covert operation styled thrillers there have been some particularly well known authors over the years.  Tom Clancy, Robert Ludlum, Ian Fleming and Len Deighton come to mind immediately.  Until Mark Abernethy created Alan (Mac) McQueen, there have been fewer options to choose from set in this part of the world, seen from an Australian perspective.  Mac is our super-spy, the covert operative who knows everyone, works in our geographical region, is fearless in pursuit of the goal of whatever operation he's sent on, and frighteningly able to land himself in extremely deep water at just about every outing.

COUNTER ATTACK finds him dispatched to Singapore to oversee just such a covert mission.  Which goes pear-shaped.  Which takes Mac from there to Saigon, and onto the former killing fields of Cambodia, all the while dodging the bad guys, and the good guys (they are somehow interchangeable yet again).  Along the way he meets up with new allies, some old compatriots and uses every ounce of his nous, guile, guts and glory to avoid yet another world-wide crisis.

The fourth in the Alan McQueen series, these books are exactly what the covers are trying to tell potential readers.  Big action, loud explosions, much rushing about, Mac-jep (well everyone-jep really), adrenaline fuelled, maniacal action, badder than bad baddies and a resolution by the skin of the world's teeth.  We're talking thrillers here - we're definitely not talking nuanced and considered psychological analysis, although Mac isn't just an Energiser Bunny about everything.  He has a wife, children, people he cares about, people he feels guilty about, people who can make him doubt himself, feel responsible.  He is, however, refreshingly bullet-proof for a man of his age.

Aside from the character of Mac who is not just a man's man, he's dangerously close to a bit of a SNAG sometimes, part of the attraction of these books is that the action does take place in our region.  The settings are moving around from book to book, throughout Asia, backwards and forwards out of Canberra - the politics, the military, the relationships with our immediate neighbours are woven into the action in the books in what feels like a a very realistic manner.  There's a fair bit of tongue in cheek dialogue along the way, as well as quite a bit of blokey talk which personally I found quite realistic, but which could provide an unexpected tone for anybody who thinks that Australian's under pressure are all going to sound like Crocodile Dundee....

I've always been a fan of the Mac series.  Whilst they are exactly what they promise to be - big, bold, loud, mad, bad and slightly out of control, there's a little bit more than that.  There are some nice little human touches, there's more than just Mac in the character line up and then there's the localised settings which are the icing on the cake.  Even with the reoccurring character set, you wouldn't have to have read the earlier books in the series to dive into COUNTER ATTACK.  But summer's on the way and these are perfect lazy summer day reads - so why not catch up with Mac in the earlier books and really get an idea of where he's coming from?

Four children telling a lie to stay out of trouble and a man shot in the head in London 40 years later.  Obviously there's some sort of connection as they are both elements of WATCH OUT FOR ME by Sylvia Johnson.  What's always intriguing with these sorts of unlikely components, is how and where the author is going to take the reader.

WATCH OUT FOR ME is an intriguing and complex debut psychological thriller.  Told in a series of short chapters attributed mostly to those children, their story bounces between them then and as the adults they have become.  One brother, two sisters, and their young cousin, who all come together for a summer holiday where something bad happened.  Whilst there is that concentration on the past, there are ripples into the present.  

WATCH OUT FOR ME builds deceptively.  At the start we're very much looking for an explanation of what happened in 1967.  In the current timeline one sister (Hannah) is in Sydney, dealing with the inconveniences of life in Sydney in lockdown for the visit of the American President; whilst the other (Lizzie) is in Morocco dealing with a more personal threat.  Cousin Toby is newly back in the Hannah's life, conveniently ducked by her brother Richard.  The relationship of the three siblings with each other, and then with the outsider - the cousin that they all seemed to like - touches on so many of the fundamental themes of this book - fear, prejudice, expediency, violence and panic, hysteria and cruelty - purposeful and accidental.  Meanwhile the true story of the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes in London in the aftermath of the 2005 Underground bombings is touched upon, using clippings from the British newspapers.  This is not as odd or as sensationalist a juxtaposition as it would seem.  There is a synergy between the fictional and the fact.  The use of the fact isn't gratuitous - it illustrates all too well the mistakes that can be made in the realm of supposition.  

There are some standout characterisations in this book - Hannah grumpy, ranting, tense, scared, conflicted, abrasive, tricky.  Lizzie is more contained; frightened by the situation she finds herself in, stuck in a strange land, it never seems like she won't be able to cope.  Richard, the elder brother elusive, uninvolved.  Toby hesitant, his separation from the others has had ramifications in his life, as it emerges it did for the other three.  

WATCH OUT FOR ME is an interesting construction.  Much of the story is elusive, ethereal in some places, superficially there's a lot of disconnected elements - the three siblings, Toby, the mysterious man in the heavy overcoat, the past and present timelines.  It's a style that's going to be difficult for some readers, it's content uncomfortable, disconcerting.  Yet there's tension and suspicion and there's a connection to everything when you start to dig below the surface.  Often, when discovered, the connection is the emotional and personality traits formed or demonstrated in 1967.   

WATCH OUT FOR ME isn't a book in which the past comes back to haunt the present, rather it's a book in which the past gives you clues to the people that these children will grow up to become.  The way that their choices back then reflect, and affect, who they are years later.   Whilst the past is ultimately explained, the present is frequently more hinted at, not requiring blatant explanation, left to interpretation.  Which of course makes it the perfect book for this reader.