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The Diplomat Thrillers #1
The Ambassador
A global conspiracy. A man on the run. What happens when diplomacy fails?
In the aftermath of a global pandemic, a beautiful and charismatic human rights activist is murdered, live on the internet, at the British Embassy in Paris. It is a mystery that no one wants solved.
But, when governments refuse to investigate, Ambassador Ed Barnes is determined to find out the truth himself.
The quest for answers plunges Barnes into a world of cyber terrorists and warlords, taking him to Oxford, Copenhagen, the mountains of Snowdonia and Lebanon, where he picks up the trail of a shocking conspiracy.
This is an international crisis - but also a personal one. Only Barnes can save his family, his diplomatic service and even his country.
But can he save himself?
An unputdownable thriller, written with unique insight into the highest levels of diplomacy. From the former ambassador and No 10 foreign policy advisor Tom Fletcher, this is an urgent 21st-century thriller into a shadowy world that now shapes all of our lives.
In the aftermath of a global pandemic, a beautiful and charismatic human rights activist is murdered, live on the internet, at the British Embassy in Paris. It is a mystery that no one wants solved.
But, when governments refuse to investigate, Ambassador Ed Barnes is determined to find out the truth himself.
The quest for answers plunges Barnes into a world of cyber terrorists and warlords, taking him to Oxford, Copenhagen, the mountains of Snowdonia and Lebanon, where he picks up the trail of a shocking conspiracy.
This is an international crisis - but also a personal one. Only Barnes can save his family, his diplomatic service and even his country.
But can he save himself?
An unputdownable thriller, written with unique insight into the highest levels of diplomacy. From the former ambassador and No 10 foreign policy advisor Tom Fletcher, this is an urgent 21st-century thriller into a shadowy world that now shapes all of our lives.
320 pages, Kindle Edition
Published August 4, 2022
72 people are currently reading
191 people want to read
About the author
Tom Fletcher
4 books32 followersTom Fletcher CMG is a Visiting Professor of International Relations at New York University, and Senior Advisor to the Director General at the Emirates Diplomatic Academy. He was British Ambassador to Lebanon (2011-15), and the Downing Street foreign policy adviser to three Prime Ministers, (2007-11). He is an Honorary Fellow of Oxford University, and the Global Strategy Director for the Global Business Coalition for Education, which seeks to harness private sector efforts to get 59 million children into school. He blogs as the Naked Diplomat, and chairs the International Advisory Council of the Creative Industries Federation, promoting Britain's most dynamic and magnetic sector overseas. Tom has recently led a review of British diplomacy for the UK Foreign Office, and is currently working on a report on the future of the United Nations for the next UN Secretary General. Tom is married to Dr Louise Fletcher, a psychologist, and they have two sons.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 52 reviews
May 31, 2024
This book fell so flat and the protagonist was irritating! Initially planned on giving 1 star as there were so many points I just wanted to give up reading, but in the right hands, this could be a very good book. Hence a very generous 2!
September 13, 2023
Had to give it one star because it wasn’t possible to give it zero stars. What a dreadful book. A waste of time.
September 1, 2022
I enjoyed the inside view of Embassy/diplomatic life. However, the book is not well written, the female characters fall flat. Indeed, all characters feel flat, including the protagonist. It was too convoluted, too many plots and devices, and I had guessed who the murderer was from the start of the book.
September 11, 2022
Very disappointed and a disappointment to read I had high hopes for the book and the ambassador but he was boring and dull
March 27, 2023
A bit disappointed.
Starts very well with lots of “references” to current world concerns but like too many novels we later head off with an “Everyman” becoming an almost “Superman” or at last a special forces hero.
Starts very well with lots of “references” to current world concerns but like too many novels we later head off with an “Everyman” becoming an almost “Superman” or at last a special forces hero.
January 20, 2023
A rambling and static non thriller. The plot isn't true to itself so I stopped reading halfway through
February 27, 2023
I have to say I disliked the protagonist which didn’t help. He kept going on how much he wants to save his family and at the same time lustered after every woman who came his way. Maybe that’s how a man’s brain works, I don’t know, but I thought it was annoying.
There were also a lot of loose ends, whatever happened to Tatham and the theory of mining data for other governments and the data leaks never resulted to anything. And the whole story about the rights activists didn’t make sense and there was no resolution even they didn’t have a leader in the end.
I don’t think the plot was thought through well.
There were also a lot of loose ends, whatever happened to Tatham and the theory of mining data for other governments and the data leaks never resulted to anything. And the whole story about the rights activists didn’t make sense and there was no resolution even they didn’t have a leader in the end.
I don’t think the plot was thought through well.
May 24, 2023
It was really compelling in the middle, but started to lose it a bit at the end. Too many characters. Too much assumed familiarity that wasn’t delivered in the writing. Over-editing, perhaps.
December 7, 2024
Warning: sexual assault mentioned.
This reinforced that it's often who you know that gets you published. If I had written this it would never have been accepted, but the privileged have access.
It is poorly written, the prose is painful in places, often inconsistent, monotonous and clichéd.
Characters are broadly unappealing and with little colour or depth. They drone on often having to explain the plot in clumsy interchanges.
An editor should have picked up the inconsistency of narrative where weather and surroundings contradict themselves.
The action is pretty sparse, there is very little going on, and it is mostly done in the later half of the book with sad switch and baits about whodunit.
The whole data mining was pretty much for show, I suspect there was no research done to support any real examination of that so it was a clunky plot device.
The thing that lifted it from bad to distasteful was the way the women were used as plot devices and the misogynistic attitude inherent in that.
The motivation for some key actions is that a woman is raped and how that makes a male feel is the catalyst for events. A woman prefers another woman to her husband and how the man has to deal with that is another motivator. Both these women are consistently written as objects. Indeed the third woman has a whole having a bath getting naked in front of an acquaintance and it's again all about the male gaze. This is the male who is tortured with his feelings for his wife who might leave him. Seriously dreadful stuff.
It's awful.
Don't bother .
This reinforced that it's often who you know that gets you published. If I had written this it would never have been accepted, but the privileged have access.
It is poorly written, the prose is painful in places, often inconsistent, monotonous and clichéd.
Characters are broadly unappealing and with little colour or depth. They drone on often having to explain the plot in clumsy interchanges.
An editor should have picked up the inconsistency of narrative where weather and surroundings contradict themselves.
The action is pretty sparse, there is very little going on, and it is mostly done in the later half of the book with sad switch and baits about whodunit.
The whole data mining was pretty much for show, I suspect there was no research done to support any real examination of that so it was a clunky plot device.
The thing that lifted it from bad to distasteful was the way the women were used as plot devices and the misogynistic attitude inherent in that.
The motivation for some key actions is that a woman is raped and how that makes a male feel is the catalyst for events. A woman prefers another woman to her husband and how the man has to deal with that is another motivator. Both these women are consistently written as objects. Indeed the third woman has a whole having a bath getting naked in front of an acquaintance and it's again all about the male gaze. This is the male who is tortured with his feelings for his wife who might leave him. Seriously dreadful stuff.
It's awful.
Don't bother .
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
June 27, 2022
Thank you to NetGalley, the publisher and author for this ARC.
This is my first read by this author and the blurb caught my interest. I thought this was a good read, although initially I felt it got off to a fairly slow start and it took a while for me to become familiar with the characters and for them to slot into place in my mind. When someone is murdered in the British Embassy in Paris and their death filmed and Governments are unwilling to investigate Ambassador Ed Barnes takes matters into his own hands and is determined to find out what happened and searches for the truth. Will he like what he finds though? After a slow beginning the book soon started to pick up pace and became quite an absorbing read. I liked most of the characters, particularly Ed and Orla and there was one character I absolutely loathed. I enjoyed following Ed’s search for the truth and thought that the different country settings added more depth to the book. There are plenty of twists in the story which held my attention and interest all the way through. Overall this is a very good, entertaining and well written book, it has an engaging plot line, and the second half of the book really picks up pace and is full of plenty of action and suspense and races to a thrilling ending.
This is my first read by this author and the blurb caught my interest. I thought this was a good read, although initially I felt it got off to a fairly slow start and it took a while for me to become familiar with the characters and for them to slot into place in my mind. When someone is murdered in the British Embassy in Paris and their death filmed and Governments are unwilling to investigate Ambassador Ed Barnes takes matters into his own hands and is determined to find out what happened and searches for the truth. Will he like what he finds though? After a slow beginning the book soon started to pick up pace and became quite an absorbing read. I liked most of the characters, particularly Ed and Orla and there was one character I absolutely loathed. I enjoyed following Ed’s search for the truth and thought that the different country settings added more depth to the book. There are plenty of twists in the story which held my attention and interest all the way through. Overall this is a very good, entertaining and well written book, it has an engaging plot line, and the second half of the book really picks up pace and is full of plenty of action and suspense and races to a thrilling ending.
July 8, 2022
A murder at the British Embassy in Paris leaves ambassador Ed Barnes looking for the truth. But the further his investigation goes, the more he finds out that could hurt him, his country and more! He has to travel the world to follow up on information and the question arises, who can he trust?
This is a great conspiracy thriller that takes you across Europe and Lebanon. An international crises which is described perfectly and with a great eye for detail. The author manages to tell a story that could easily happen in real life, perhaps it even happened already on some scale. You get a perfect inside in the diplomatic world and all the shadow government that comes with it.
This is a great conspiracy thriller that takes you across Europe and Lebanon. An international crises which is described perfectly and with a great eye for detail. The author manages to tell a story that could easily happen in real life, perhaps it even happened already on some scale. You get a perfect inside in the diplomatic world and all the shadow government that comes with it.
August 17, 2022
A somewhat ponderous thriller , incorporating dastardly deeds of various countries , data mining, family secrets and political intrigue involving the British ambassador to France, murder of an activist, data leaks, drone strikes, all very busy , I found the plot somewhat confusing, the emergence of a youngster rebellion against the older generations values and institutions was interesting but nor gripping, and in the end the involved and laboured plot devices just muddied the waters.To clever by half.
September 15, 2022
A bit convoluted in places, and drags on in others, but a half decent thriller for our times involving populist politics, extreme protesters, the pandemic and technology.
I would argue it's a little far fetched as well......and if it's not, then it's a very scary premise and world we live in!
I would argue it's a little far fetched as well......and if it's not, then it's a very scary premise and world we live in!
October 23, 2025
I was excited to read this book given the author's bona fides (Foreign and Development Policy Adviser to Prime Ministers Blair, Brown and David Cameron and current United Nations' Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs) however unfortunately it was very disappointing. It's essentially a whodunnit (and why) in an embassy but is mired in numerous problems. Firstly, its pace is glacial, the plot does not discernibly move until halfway through its 300 pages. The motive (?) for the killing (a data mining algorithm) is muddled and improbable, there are far too many characters who are ill defined and poorly distinguished, many with similar names and who serve little to no purpose save to confuse the reader. The protagonist characters are largely unsympathetic and unlikable including the first person narrator, the ambassador himself. Lastly it has an unforgivable technical error referencing a Glock 43 *revolver* that pulls anyone with even basic firearms knowledge right out of the story - such errors are inexcusable in the internet era. If my OCD enabled me to, I would have abandoned this book, as it was I could not wait to be done with it.
November 6, 2022
As usual in my reviews, I will not rehash the plot (you'll find reviews like that out there already!)
I really enjoyed this book. It's a fast-paced novel that starts in Paris and moves to multiple locations (Oxford, Lebanon, and Snowdonia of all places!). From start to finish it's clear that there's much more to the dramatic events of Paris than meets the eye - and that various governments are keen to keep the truth under wraps. This is probably no surprise to anyone who follows politics and reads political history (where secrets are often revealed!) but the writing is compelling nonetheless.
The writing was spot on for me - the main characters are well written and retain their "humanity", in that they have strengths and weaknesses too - something that is often missing in thrillers.
I look forward to reading more by this author. With his background in the UK political scene (a former advisor to No. 10!) I'm sure he has much to base his stories on.
My thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for an ARC. All opinions my own.
I really enjoyed this book. It's a fast-paced novel that starts in Paris and moves to multiple locations (Oxford, Lebanon, and Snowdonia of all places!). From start to finish it's clear that there's much more to the dramatic events of Paris than meets the eye - and that various governments are keen to keep the truth under wraps. This is probably no surprise to anyone who follows politics and reads political history (where secrets are often revealed!) but the writing is compelling nonetheless.
The writing was spot on for me - the main characters are well written and retain their "humanity", in that they have strengths and weaknesses too - something that is often missing in thrillers.
I look forward to reading more by this author. With his background in the UK political scene (a former advisor to No. 10!) I'm sure he has much to base his stories on.
My thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for an ARC. All opinions my own.
April 5, 2024
The Ambassador by Tom Fletcher is book 1 in The Diplomat series and starts off in Paris. Ed Barnes is the UK Ambassador in Paris. Amina Joshi, a friend of Ed’s wife, is murdered whilst staying in the residence of the Embassy. Ed is sure she is murdered but the powers that be want it classed as suicide. Pederson and his Dissenters are intent on leaking documents and so creating havoc. It seems Ed is in the firing line. He is determined to fight for the truth as his world is collapsing around him. The sense of anticipation and also of intrigue throughout the book added to my enjoyment of the book. Really enjoyed this thriller and it certainly has the ring of authenticity considering the author’s previous occupation. The portrayal of characters in the Foreign Office are also very credible and believable. Look forward to the next book, The Assassin.
October 5, 2024
The pandemic year changed so many people's lives that everything written before then seems somehow less relevant now, at least to me. I picked this up primarily because it's a post-pandemic novel. I've given it four stars because many reviewers have panned it and given it only two stars, which is definitely too low. The book benefits from the author's inside knowledge of the operations of the UK government and the diplomatic service. Without giving too much away, I disliked the ending. The culprit, if any, was not who I wanted it to be, and many things were left unresolved, or at least not resolved to my satisfaction. And then the book concluded with an abrupt jump forward in time and a brief summary of what the main characters were doing two years later.
January 16, 2025
I thought The Ambassador was awful. Flimsy plot, thinly drawn cardboard cut-out characters, breathless but dull writing, with bits of colour chucked in to try to add some kind of authenticity. But I didn't believe a word of it, which is ironic, given that the writer is a former Ambassador. Maybe he was trying desperately to make the role seem "sexy"! I guess this is what they used to call "airport fiction" - holiday reading. I think writers like this mistake hectic pace for tension. But if the characters and plot aren't portrayed credibly through the writing, and you can't empathise, then stories just don't work.
I've had some lovely books for Christmas, including the Al Pacino autobiography and a Columbo companion, for when we happen across an episode on a quiet afternoon.
I've had some lovely books for Christmas, including the Al Pacino autobiography and a Columbo companion, for when we happen across an episode on a quiet afternoon.
November 6, 2024
Audiobook. Great plot. I came across the Fletchers listening to the Eve of Man (Eve of Man #1) which I thoroughly enjoyed. I then listened to Some Kind of Wonderful by Giovanna and did not enjoy the storyline or writing style. I’m glad I listened to The Ambassador and definitely enjoyed Tom’s solo writing style.
January 24, 2025
What a pointless book! So boring!
I only read it because it was the first book to another I'd bought to read without realising it was a 2 part.
I did it on audio so sped the talking up to make it go quicker!
The ending was boring and the journey to get there was so interesting. I couldn't wait for it to finish!
I only read it because it was the first book to another I'd bought to read without realising it was a 2 part.
I did it on audio so sped the talking up to make it go quicker!
The ending was boring and the journey to get there was so interesting. I couldn't wait for it to finish!
November 19, 2025
This is really not good at all...nothing makes sense, the plot, what the characters are doing in their roles, its just not logical. D.N.F. In fact I have the 2nd book (The Assassin) on hand from the library which I am going to return without reading. Unless you have infinite time to read, there are really better thrillers out there.....
March 8, 2023
3.5 ⭐️
An interesting and intriguing story of a diplomat trying to solve the mystery of a “suicide” in his embassy. In the hopes that it will bring his family back together.
A little long winded but good story.
An interesting and intriguing story of a diplomat trying to solve the mystery of a “suicide” in his embassy. In the hopes that it will bring his family back together.
A little long winded but good story.
December 5, 2023
A great story idea and potentially clever and pacey story but I failed to warm to any of the characters which made it hard to feel suspense as I wasn’t bothered what happened to them and it was a bit repetitive in parts and sometimes a feeling of unnecessary plot lines and characters
December 15, 2024
Inside insight from an inside Source
Calculatingly subdued and brilliantly executed. I was deliberately underwhelmed at first, only to be very satisfactorily and connivingly overwhelmed by the end! Well done, your Excellency!
Calculatingly subdued and brilliantly executed. I was deliberately underwhelmed at first, only to be very satisfactorily and connivingly overwhelmed by the end! Well done, your Excellency!
December 30, 2024
Sadly, not for me. I just didn't care about the characters enough, especially the ambassador. After reading about 30% I jumped towards the end to see if it caught my attention but even that didn't entice me to go back and read the bits I missed. Maybe I'm just not cut out for this genre.
August 3, 2025
When his wife's friend dies in his embassy, The Ambassador is determined to find out who killed her. But before he can she becomes part of a cult of teenagers killing themselves. He has to stop it even when he is dismissed from his job.
A decent thriller
A decent thriller
June 12, 2023
I enjoyed this book. It is very well written but somewhat far-fetched and overly complex!
July 22, 2023
Ended up giving up. This was going nowhere interesting. Had potential at the start.
October 20, 2023
A workmanlike diplomatic investigative thriller that becomes increasingly more unlikely and convoluted. It goes through the motions satisfactorily but generates precious few thrills or tension.
October 25, 2023
A nice read but a bit flat. I had hoped for a richer text and a swifter plot. A bit thin overall.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 52 reviews