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The Outer Circle
"This exceptional thriller is one of the best books I've read this year" Natasha Harding The Sun
"An outstanding debut novel – storytelling at its finest" Stephen Leather
It’s the morning after the closing ceremony of the Olympic Games in London. The city is relaxed as rarely before, delighted with itself at how spectacularly it has hosted the uplifting event.
The capital, however, will be rudely and brutally awoken from its self-congratulation by a shocking atrocity committed upon innocent Muslims at the London Central Mosque in Regent's Park.
How could it happen? Why did it happen? Is this a terrorist attack? Is it political? Or is it personal?
THE OUTER CIRCLE is concerned with the culture of modern Britain. It follows five characters caught up in this tragic event and the aftermath of anxiety and reprisal as the answers dramatically emerge.
"An outstanding debut novel – storytelling at its finest" Stephen Leather
It’s the morning after the closing ceremony of the Olympic Games in London. The city is relaxed as rarely before, delighted with itself at how spectacularly it has hosted the uplifting event.
The capital, however, will be rudely and brutally awoken from its self-congratulation by a shocking atrocity committed upon innocent Muslims at the London Central Mosque in Regent's Park.
How could it happen? Why did it happen? Is this a terrorist attack? Is it political? Or is it personal?
THE OUTER CIRCLE is concerned with the culture of modern Britain. It follows five characters caught up in this tragic event and the aftermath of anxiety and reprisal as the answers dramatically emerge.
304 pages, Kindle Edition
Published January 16, 2018
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
June 29, 2018
Good, solid contemporary thriller set in my neck of the woods with convincing authenticity. Ridley's newspaper knowledge - and frustrated scorn for the era of Content Warehousing - shines through, and his journalist character oozes realism. Ending a little too hurried and flat, but otherwise an excellent fiction debut (surprised it didn't find a mainstream publisher) and I'll read his next one with pleasure.
March 28, 2018
I’m not a sporty person, so I didn’t know any of Ian Ridley’s work before I read this novel. It’s not a surprise to me though to find out that he’s a journalist with a number of published sports books. His writing is very good and his knowledge of the world of journalism is excellent.
The Outer Circle in the title has a nicely double edged meaning. It refers to the ring round around Regent’s Park, but can equally as well refer to those who are disenfranchised or alienated in an ever changing, multi-cultural London.
The concept of the book is straightforward and works very well. 5 characters each have a role to play in the aftermath of an horrific atrocity committed against 5 Muslims at the Central Mosque in Regent’s Park. The action span revolves through just one week.
Saul is coming to the end of his treatment for prostate cancer. His daily regime is to walk through Regent’s Park, resting as he goes, on his way for his daily radiotherapy treatment. Rashid is a new convert to the Muslim faith, working in the library of the Mosque and slowly getting to know people there when the atrocity occurs.
Tom has come to London to do his brother Jason a favour. Jason is just home from the army where he has been in Afghanistan, and he’s quite an angry young man. Tom’s girlfriend Rachel has recently suffered a terrible experience and Tom is having trouble reconciling his feelings about her ever since. His sense of guilt about this is tangible. Deena is a relatively new P.C. with the Metropolitan Police. Keen to make her mark, she wants to become a detective one day. Her boyfriend is a personal trainer in Dubai, though she finds him very controlling and is thinking of ending their relationship.
Jan is a journalist. Hanging onto her job by a thread because in these days of instant news and cutbacks in print journalism, she’s that most difficult of things, an expensive journalist over the age of 30 who doesn’t actually think that you can do the job from behind a desk all the time.
Over the course of a week these five characters will meet and mix around Regent’s Park; some will come to know others better; a couple will learn that keeping their own counsel is sometimes better than chatting to a stranger and at least two will be in serious danger.
It will start with Saul and Tom meeting in the park and gradually forming a slow trust and from there it will escalate in directions that no-one, least of all Saul, could have foreseen.
I really enjoyed meeting these characters and in the course of the book, learning a bit here and there in a light touch way about the fundamentals of the Islamic religion. I found the characters convincing and sympathetic and this really helped to make the book an excellent read.
Ian Ridley has written a convincing and persuasive account of a fictional event that could all too plausibly be true, set in a London that is recognisable not just for its setting but for its vibrancy and multi culturalism. That mixture of the feel good glow after the closing London Olympic Ceremony, coupled with the horror of an atrocity committed in the midst of everyday business provides a chilling backdrop to an all too human story where the relationships that form are the backbone of the story.
I really enjoyed this book and I learnt something. I can’t ask for more than that.
The Outer Circle in the title has a nicely double edged meaning. It refers to the ring round around Regent’s Park, but can equally as well refer to those who are disenfranchised or alienated in an ever changing, multi-cultural London.
The concept of the book is straightforward and works very well. 5 characters each have a role to play in the aftermath of an horrific atrocity committed against 5 Muslims at the Central Mosque in Regent’s Park. The action span revolves through just one week.
Saul is coming to the end of his treatment for prostate cancer. His daily regime is to walk through Regent’s Park, resting as he goes, on his way for his daily radiotherapy treatment. Rashid is a new convert to the Muslim faith, working in the library of the Mosque and slowly getting to know people there when the atrocity occurs.
Tom has come to London to do his brother Jason a favour. Jason is just home from the army where he has been in Afghanistan, and he’s quite an angry young man. Tom’s girlfriend Rachel has recently suffered a terrible experience and Tom is having trouble reconciling his feelings about her ever since. His sense of guilt about this is tangible. Deena is a relatively new P.C. with the Metropolitan Police. Keen to make her mark, she wants to become a detective one day. Her boyfriend is a personal trainer in Dubai, though she finds him very controlling and is thinking of ending their relationship.
Jan is a journalist. Hanging onto her job by a thread because in these days of instant news and cutbacks in print journalism, she’s that most difficult of things, an expensive journalist over the age of 30 who doesn’t actually think that you can do the job from behind a desk all the time.
Over the course of a week these five characters will meet and mix around Regent’s Park; some will come to know others better; a couple will learn that keeping their own counsel is sometimes better than chatting to a stranger and at least two will be in serious danger.
It will start with Saul and Tom meeting in the park and gradually forming a slow trust and from there it will escalate in directions that no-one, least of all Saul, could have foreseen.
I really enjoyed meeting these characters and in the course of the book, learning a bit here and there in a light touch way about the fundamentals of the Islamic religion. I found the characters convincing and sympathetic and this really helped to make the book an excellent read.
Ian Ridley has written a convincing and persuasive account of a fictional event that could all too plausibly be true, set in a London that is recognisable not just for its setting but for its vibrancy and multi culturalism. That mixture of the feel good glow after the closing London Olympic Ceremony, coupled with the horror of an atrocity committed in the midst of everyday business provides a chilling backdrop to an all too human story where the relationships that form are the backbone of the story.
I really enjoyed this book and I learnt something. I can’t ask for more than that.
March 29, 2018
IAN RIDLEY’S THE OUTER CIRCLE opens on a swelteringly hot day in August 2012, just after the closing ceremony of the London Olympics. The capital is euphoric, the city basking in ‘sunshine and pride’, ‘at peace and ease with itself’ after the glory of the Games. Tolerance is the name of the day and at the London Central Mosque in beautiful Regents Park, thousands are gathering for a family fun day to take advantage of the beautiful weather, souks, food and even a bouncy castle.
Security is tight, yet everyone, it seems, has relaxed their guard, relishing the unity of the moment. Thus, it’s all the more shocking when this mood is pierced by the screams of the people involved in a horrific attack inside the Mosque. The Outer Circle focuses on five characters caught up in the action, and its effect on their lives in the four days immediately following it.
Although we see events through the eyes of Rashid, Tom, Deena and Jan, to all intents and purposes Saul is the main protagonist. He opens the book, setting the scene beautifully with the meticulous eye of the editor that he is, as he makes his way from his flat in Primrose Hill, via the Park, to receive radiation therapy for prostate cancer. In the Park, he first encounters Tom, a young man, alone and in some distress in London, dealing with his own personal demons and conflicted family loyalties. Deena is an inexperienced PC called to the scene in the event’s aftermath, Jan a journalist, hanging onto her career by a thread, and Rashid, a former Jew and convert to Islam, who witnesses the tragedy firsthand. All of these characters are affected in seemingly unexpected ways by the events of that day.
A journalist and author of several non-fiction titles, Ridley sets the scene of post-Olympics London well in this, his first novel. It’s a city delighted with itself, metaphorically patting itself on the back for how unified it appears, but beneath that mask, the conflicts bubble away. An almost unbearable heatwave in a city that doesn’t do heat well exacerbates the tension and hatred that quickly surfaces after the brutal attack on the Mosque occurs.
For me, a Londoner born and bred, who grew up in the shadow of the IRA reign of terror and the day-to-day threat of the National Front and other extremist groups, or for anyone who has lived through any of the recent terrorist attacks either in the city or elsewhere, Ridley’s attention to detail, and the emotions and thoughts experienced by the characters appear authentic, the sense of disquiet evoked uncomfortably familiar. Regretfully we live in a world, in which going about our daily business, walking along a pavement to go to the shops or crossing a road to meet a friend, the world can simply turn on its head in the blink of an eye and anything can happen to any of us, at any time, with absolutely no warning– and that’s the true nature of terrorism.
I was thinking about how to class The Outer Circle. It’s certainly not a classic crime or suspense novel or thriller even. Perhaps it’s more a study of human behaviour, an acute observation of how people – and also a city – react in extreme circumstances. Certainly, you can’t get more topical than that.
Review appears on The Literary Shed, www.theliteraryshed.co.uk. There's also a Q&A with the author.
Security is tight, yet everyone, it seems, has relaxed their guard, relishing the unity of the moment. Thus, it’s all the more shocking when this mood is pierced by the screams of the people involved in a horrific attack inside the Mosque. The Outer Circle focuses on five characters caught up in the action, and its effect on their lives in the four days immediately following it.
Although we see events through the eyes of Rashid, Tom, Deena and Jan, to all intents and purposes Saul is the main protagonist. He opens the book, setting the scene beautifully with the meticulous eye of the editor that he is, as he makes his way from his flat in Primrose Hill, via the Park, to receive radiation therapy for prostate cancer. In the Park, he first encounters Tom, a young man, alone and in some distress in London, dealing with his own personal demons and conflicted family loyalties. Deena is an inexperienced PC called to the scene in the event’s aftermath, Jan a journalist, hanging onto her career by a thread, and Rashid, a former Jew and convert to Islam, who witnesses the tragedy firsthand. All of these characters are affected in seemingly unexpected ways by the events of that day.
A journalist and author of several non-fiction titles, Ridley sets the scene of post-Olympics London well in this, his first novel. It’s a city delighted with itself, metaphorically patting itself on the back for how unified it appears, but beneath that mask, the conflicts bubble away. An almost unbearable heatwave in a city that doesn’t do heat well exacerbates the tension and hatred that quickly surfaces after the brutal attack on the Mosque occurs.
For me, a Londoner born and bred, who grew up in the shadow of the IRA reign of terror and the day-to-day threat of the National Front and other extremist groups, or for anyone who has lived through any of the recent terrorist attacks either in the city or elsewhere, Ridley’s attention to detail, and the emotions and thoughts experienced by the characters appear authentic, the sense of disquiet evoked uncomfortably familiar. Regretfully we live in a world, in which going about our daily business, walking along a pavement to go to the shops or crossing a road to meet a friend, the world can simply turn on its head in the blink of an eye and anything can happen to any of us, at any time, with absolutely no warning– and that’s the true nature of terrorism.
I was thinking about how to class The Outer Circle. It’s certainly not a classic crime or suspense novel or thriller even. Perhaps it’s more a study of human behaviour, an acute observation of how people – and also a city – react in extreme circumstances. Certainly, you can’t get more topical than that.
Review appears on The Literary Shed, www.theliteraryshed.co.uk. There's also a Q&A with the author.
January 13, 2018
The Outer Circle is set over the course of five days, shortly after the end of the London 2012 Olympics. The story is set on the other side of the city in the very affluent area of Regents Park and Primrose Hill. A man walks into the Regents Park Mosque with a flamethrower...
We follow the event and the aftermath through the eyes of five different characters:
Saul - an older man who walks through Regents Park to get his daily treatment for prostate cancer
Rashid - who works in the bookshop at the Mosque, a recent convert to Islam
Deena - a black police officer
Tom - a student
Jan - a journalist
The narrative is broken into sections that drop in and out of the characters' lives, all trying to unpick what has happened. At times the characters can seem a bit cliched, and the dialogue can sound pretty clunky at times, but the story is compelling enough to capture the reader. The book's real strength is the sense of place. Regents Park is a pretty small area, even though, as we're told more than once, it takes a while to walk the length of the park. It is an area with cafes and bars, bandstands and bunkers. It has a high footfall from tourists, locals, dog-walkers, homeless... The park is almost a place apart from the rest of the city; the roads through it are closed at night and feel like secret roads; there are lawns and trees and bushes instead of the buildings and CCTV cameras; the park has its own rules and those who use the park feel temporarily relieved from the rules of the rest of the city.
But as well as adhering to the strict geography of the park, there is also a sense of multi-cultural London. It has been in broadcast into every home around the world through the Olympics, it has folk of all colours and creeds. The cultural diversity is great enough that, for the most part, people can walk around unnoticed in a busy and somewhat impersonal city. We step into the world of politics and prejudice - with a firmly left of centre editorial policy applied sometimes with a heavyish hand.
The novel is pacy and the pages seem to turn themselves. All five characters have their individual quests and part of the fun is seeing how they interlink. This is a light, entertaining read that sometimes promises to provoke thoughts and sometimes succeeds in doing so. This would be worth taking to the beach on holiday to deliver a taste of home.
We follow the event and the aftermath through the eyes of five different characters:
Saul - an older man who walks through Regents Park to get his daily treatment for prostate cancer
Rashid - who works in the bookshop at the Mosque, a recent convert to Islam
Deena - a black police officer
Tom - a student
Jan - a journalist
The narrative is broken into sections that drop in and out of the characters' lives, all trying to unpick what has happened. At times the characters can seem a bit cliched, and the dialogue can sound pretty clunky at times, but the story is compelling enough to capture the reader. The book's real strength is the sense of place. Regents Park is a pretty small area, even though, as we're told more than once, it takes a while to walk the length of the park. It is an area with cafes and bars, bandstands and bunkers. It has a high footfall from tourists, locals, dog-walkers, homeless... The park is almost a place apart from the rest of the city; the roads through it are closed at night and feel like secret roads; there are lawns and trees and bushes instead of the buildings and CCTV cameras; the park has its own rules and those who use the park feel temporarily relieved from the rules of the rest of the city.
But as well as adhering to the strict geography of the park, there is also a sense of multi-cultural London. It has been in broadcast into every home around the world through the Olympics, it has folk of all colours and creeds. The cultural diversity is great enough that, for the most part, people can walk around unnoticed in a busy and somewhat impersonal city. We step into the world of politics and prejudice - with a firmly left of centre editorial policy applied sometimes with a heavyish hand.
The novel is pacy and the pages seem to turn themselves. All five characters have their individual quests and part of the fun is seeing how they interlink. This is a light, entertaining read that sometimes promises to provoke thoughts and sometimes succeeds in doing so. This would be worth taking to the beach on holiday to deliver a taste of home.
February 10, 2018
Set in the immediate aftermath of the 2012 Olympic Games, The Outer Circle tells the story of five diverse characters brought together by an atrocity in London.
This is a fast-paced, gripping novel written with an intricate knowledge of London. It's certainly a page-turner, and I found myself having a few late nights as I promised to read just one more chapter.
I wouldn't hesitate to recommend this book to anyone.
This is a fast-paced, gripping novel written with an intricate knowledge of London. It's certainly a page-turner, and I found myself having a few late nights as I promised to read just one more chapter.
I wouldn't hesitate to recommend this book to anyone.
October 24, 2018
The author has concocted a very realistic scenario peopled by sensitively drawn, original characters, each with their own ideas and insecurities. Much thought has clearly gone into the interaction and burgeoning relationships between the five main characters. The plot is well thought through, the writing is powerful, and the outcome always uncertain - I was gripped from the start.
April 27, 2020
I really enjoyed this book. Not my normal style of book but it was well written and the type of book where you want to keep reading. Would recommend.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews