Just When We Are Safest

by Reg Gadney

Alan Rosslyn is a Senior investigation Officer with Customs & Excise in a specialist in smuggled arms and explosives, exceptionally good at what he does. Recently for instance, he traced a huge cache of serious high explosives to the house of an IRA operative. It was an enormous victory for Customs & Excise, a severe blow to the terrorist cause, and a personal triumph for Rosslyn. Yet no success could stand up to the horror that suddenly engulfs him as this gripping, highly charged novel As he watches, unknowing and helpless, the woman he loves is brutally murdered in an aborted bombing attempt. Recruited to work undercover to track the bomber, Rosslyn isn't surprised to discover that his lover's death and the latest, gruesome bombing are connected. But the deeper he probes, the more surprising and disturbing his discoveries become. The "reformed and reorganized" Security Services have become an internecine knot of treacherous rivalries inside of which several atrocities have been allowed to go unsolved. Now, someone is trying to pin the blame for the worst of them on Rosslyn. With a terrible sense of inexorability, he quickly comes to understand that the enemy is not just the terrorist outside, but the terror generated with by a new generation ruthlessly vying for control of the antiterrorist agencies. As Rosslyn closes in on the bomber, he must consider the very real possibility that the bomber may have been given the information and access to close in on him first. Just When We Are Safest is an intricate, powerfully told tale of physical menace on a national scale and of moral decay on an individual scale, all of it spreading outward in ever more inclusive and dangerous circles. It is a brilliant thriller.

Genres: Fiction

280 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1995

About the author

Reginald Bernard John Gadney (20 January 1941 – 1 May 2018) was a painter, thriller-writer and an occasional screenwriter or screenplay adaptor. Gadney was also an officer in the Coldstream Guards in the 1960s and later wrote the biopic screenplay Goldeneye (about author Ian Fleming) which was filmed in 1989, directed by Don Boyd with Charles Dance playing Ian Fleming. Gadney cameoed as the real-life James Bond, the man who lent his name to Fleming's eponymous spy.
Gadney was married twice; firstly to Annette Kobak and secondly to the restaurant critic Fay Maschler, whom he met at a party in 1992. He had two children from his first marriage and three step children from his marriage to Maschler.

Reviews

[Marc Garcia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesante, intrigante y con un final inesperado

[Liara Rozsa-brown · Rating 1 out of 5]

BORING!