Wesley Britton's Blog - Posts Tagged "mossad"

Pigs
John Henry Bennet
Paperback: 392 pages
Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform (August 5, 2012)
ISBN-10: 1478360429
ISBN-13: 978-1478360421
https://www.amazon.com/Pigs-John-Henr...

Reviewed by Dr. Wesley Britton

I’m perhaps coining a somewhat inaccurate term, but while reading Pigs I felt like I was experiencing my first espionage procedural. That’s because, page after unfolding page, I really felt like I was witnessing a layered series of events in a very realistic “you are there” documentary style.

It all begins with the actual Buncefield Oil Terminal disaster of Sunday, December 11, 2005. It was the largest explosion on mainland Britain since WWII. In reality, it took years for any causes to be identified—it was finally determined that likely a failure with a switch or alarm attached to one tank resulted in an oil overflow that night.

But in Benet’s imagination, while investigators weren’t initially sure if the disaster was an accident or a terrorist act, readers are quickly notified it was a bomb planted by an Islamic agent in a “pig,” a device used to clean oil pipes. In the story, investigators were hampered by having no one taking credit for the strike. That was and is unusual behavior for Jihadists who usually want very public recognition for their blows against the West.

In the aftermath of the explosion, we are taken to the offices of important government ministers, the offices of intelligence officers who are British, French, and Israeli, observe camera clicking surveillance teams, and go into meetings of a multi-national terrorist cell. We meet a wide cast of well-drawn characters and follow them around, step by step, day by day, as they methodically determine just who was responsible for the explosion. And, as the story progresses, we watch the terrorists hatch their next scheme to blow up an oil platform in Qatar, a country they consider too cozy with the West. That’s just the next item on their vicious wish list before a serious attempt to plant a dirty bomb in London.

With his background, it shouldn’t be surprising that Bennet was able to fill his yarn with so much international verisimilitude. While serving in the British army, he spent time in the Middle East before he had a commercial career in the UK, France, the Middle East and Gulf. His travels included London, Paris, Doha Qatar, Dubai UAE, Jeddah Saudi Arabia, Eastern Europe, Hungary, Russia, Asia, North America, and Africa. His publicity doesn’t indicate any background in intelligence, so we don’t know if experience or research lead to all those operational details and personal interactions he provides.

Before the increasingly exciting final 100 pages or so, there is little glamour in the investigations, very minimal violence, little high drama or pyrotechnics, many interagency turf wars, and the obligatory politicos working to make sure no blame falls on them. In addition, we see much simple low-tech legwork in various settings before it all comes together in a London showdown where another pig is employed in the heart of the city’s sewer system.

So Bennet’s Mi-6 operative Harry Baxter, head of a three person team looking into the possibility of terrorism in the Buncefield disaster, is a very believable globe trotter in the trilogy that began with Pigs and continued in Porkies (2015) and Lies, Damn Lies (May 2017). You can be sure—this reviewer plans to read the other two volumes this year. For those who like their spy adventures down-to-earth, topical, and down-and-dirty without the exaggerated elements of the likes of Fleming, Ludlum, or Higgins, give Pigs a try. It’s an engrossing ride even without the over-the-top aspects of other thriller writers.


This review first appeared at BookPleasures.com on Sept. 16, 2017 at:
http://dpli.ir/4zCg4C

Porkies
John Henry Bennett
Print Length: 343 pages
Publication Date: November 1, 2015
Sold by: Amazon Digital Services LLC
ASIN: B017H31IVW
https://www.amazon.com/Porkies-John-H...

Reviewed by Dr. Wesley Britton

Porkies is John Henry Bennett’s 2015 sequel to his 2012 Pigs, and this is one of those cases where you really need to read the first volume before diving into book two of the trilogy.

In part, that’s because Porkies begins at the moment when Pigs ended, with the clicking countdown of a dirty bomb timer working its way through a London sewer. After the bomb is defused, Bennett spends considerable time with three alternating storylines focused on his three principal characters. First are the circumstances involving his primary protagonist, Harry Baxter, a middle rank operative for the British intelligence service. In order to keep him away from possible political embarrassment for events that occurred in Pigs, Baxter is assigned to an apparently tedious mole hunt in Islamabad, Pakistan. Likewise, his on again, off again girlfriend Mossad agent Anna Harrison (a.k.a. Anne Hardy) is taken off the frontlines by her superiors for her not following procedures before she’s reassigned to Beirut, Lebanon just before a major terrorist operation is launched there. Along the way, we watch Alain Dubois, operative for France’s DGSE intelligence agency serving in Lebanon, hook up with Anna before the pair of them meet up with Baxter some 200 pages or so into the narrative. In short, it takes Bennett around 200 pages to set up his chessboard, demonstrating battling worldwide Jihad can only be done while operatives simultaneously walk on diplomatic high wires and not ruffle any political sensitivities.

The main trio spend some recuperative time together in Beirut and Damascus after Alain and Anna are wounded in an aborted Hezbollah kidnapping scheme before Harry, against orders, rescues them. Then, Alain and Anna are off to Paris and Harry returns to Islamabad. Throw in the CIA, some pesky Russians, and some relentless Jihadists and we get the brewings of a plot to place bombs in Paris and London for simultaneous devastation.

I’ve read reviews where fellow readers wonder if Bennett is in the tradition of either Fleming or Le Carre. Neither, it seems to me. There’s none of the Flemingesque escapism or fantasy and none of the atmospherics of Le Carre. There’s none of the pumped-up thrill rides of authors like Jack Higgins, Clive Cussler or Eric Van Lustbader. Rather, I think of spy writers like W. Somerset Maugham, especially his 1928 Ashenden: or The British Agent, and some of his literary contemporaries like Graham Greene or Eric Ambler. By this I mean Bennett is following in the footsteps of getting into the bureaucratic weeds of administrative processes and procedures and the day-by-day functions of espionage officers that are often neither dramatic nor exciting. As with Pigs, all the pyrotechnics and violence occur in the final 100 pages of Porkies.

In the end, Bennett’s trilogy, presuming the 2017 Lies, Damn Lies follows the same formula as Pigs and Porkies, is for readers who like their spy stories believable, realistic, down-to-earth, and appearing to be based on actual spycraft of our times. Events are more likely to take place in government offices more so than in enemy bases or fantastic headquarters, the technology is far more low-key than in many other thrillers, and much of the action is simply moving the players from square to square. As I said in my review of Pigs, I feel reading these books is like reading espionage procedurals where we see how everything is done and why.

This review was first posted at BookPleasures.com on Oct. 13, 2017:
http://dpli.ir/Tni6vN