Double Shot

Faith Zanetti #4

by Anna Blundy

Faith Zanetti doesn't much care who put the bomb on flight TAA67, the plane that blew up over the tiny Scottish village of Cairbridge twenty-five years ago. Wasn't it those Libyan blokes who went to prison for it? For a woman whose comfort zone is a war zone it seems like the boring assignment from hell. But as the conspiracy theories start seeming less theoretical and the threats get increasingly real, Faith realises she's skating on thin ice. With the ghost of her dead father creeping out of her dreams as Sicily erupts in violence around her, and the screams of the doomed passengers ringing in her ears, Faith begins to suspect that the truth she seeks might be closer to home than she thought ...

288 pages, Paperback

First published February 1, 2008

About the author

'I was born in 1970 and grew up on my own with my mum while dad flew around the world to wars and summits. It was odd in those days, when most people didn’t go abroad, to be watching the news (in black and white) and taking it personally. Mum had shabby boyfriends and Dad had beautiful and glamorous girlfriends. I hated both lots. I spent most holidays in New York and Washington staying in foreign correspondent flats – not much furniture but lots of bottles of spirits.

I was a show-off at school and was always form captain, always in the plays and musicals. When I was fifteen I fell in love with Communist Russia and a black marketeer I met on Red Square. It was minus twenty and we were followed by the KGB. He lives in Frankfurt now.

I went to Westminster for the sixth form and showed off some more.

My dad was killed at the end of the war in El Salvador in 1989, the beginning of my second year at Oxford. I hadn’t much liked it anyway and after that I just drank until it was over.

I had done O’Level and A’ Level Russian and I did it at university too. Afterwards I moved to Moscow and worked for an American TV company making coffee and fancying the correspondent. In the evenings I sang in a blues band.

Back in London when I was 23 I started writing for newspapers and tried to travel as much as possible. I went to Russia all the time and to America, the Middle East and Africa. I wrote a column for the Times Magazine about my love life for four years. Not so fashionable now, but it was my column and that of Zoe Heller (we started at the same time) that Helen Fielding satirised in Bridget Jones.

In 1997 I went to El Salvador and wrote a book about my dad, Every Time We Say Goodbye, about bereavement, about fathers and daughters. That same year I got married, got pregnant and got a job as Moscow correspondent for the Times. Now I’m still married (surprisingly) and have two children. I write books about Faith Zanetti and am trying to stop the roof leaking on my house in Italy.

Reviews

[Andrea · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was okay and, in fact, I really liked the main character. The problem is that I didn't understand half of it because the language is so distinctly British. While some of it was funny, I think most of the jokes were lost on me. I also didn't understand all the spy/mafia stuff. Apparently I would make neither a good Brit nor a good spy.

[Foreign]

UK: Paperback original

[Melissa]

This book is the exact same as Breakng Faith.