Introducing Luke Carlton - ex-Special Boat Service commando, and now under contract to MI6 for some

of its most dangerous missions. Sent into the steaming Colombian jungle to investigate the murder of a
British intelligence officer, Luke finds himself caught up in the coils of a plot that has terrifying
international dimensions .Hunted down, captured, tortured and on the run from one of South America's
most powerful and ruthless drugs cartels and its psychotic leader thirsting for revenge, Luke is in a life-
or-death race against time to prevent a disaster on a truly terrifying scale: London is the target, the
weapon is diabolical and the means of delivery is ingenious. Drawing on his years of experience
reporting on security matters, CRISIS is Frank Gardner's debut novel. Combining insider knowledge, up-
to-the-minute hardware, fly on the wall insights with heart-in-mouth excitement, CRISIS boasts an
irresistible, visceral frisson of authenticity: smart, fast-paced and furiously entertaining, here is a thriller
for the 21st century.

I’m not sure of what I was expecting when I read this book, but with the name of Frank Gardner
attached I was probably expecting more. For those of you who can’t recall the name, Frank Gardner is
Security Editor for the BBC TV News and therefore a man with considerable knowledge of the workings
of our nation’s security services and probably those of several other countries. He is almost certain to
have contacts in a number of other fields which would help him with insider knowledge of the sort that
come in handy when writing a novel that involves Columbian drug cartels. With that pedigree, therefore,
I was expecting something a little more interesting than what Gardner gives us in “Crisis”. Luke Carlton is
the protagonist, an ex-Special Forces officer who has gone to work for MI6, Britain’s foreign intelligence
gathering service.

When a British agent is murdered in Colombia he is assigned to investigate. He then launches an

unauthorised operation to capture the head of the drugs cartel responsible for the murder, which goes
wrong in a spectacular manner, nearly getting Carlton killed. During the course of this mission Carlton
finds out that some sort of dangerous weapon is on its way to Britain to be used against us, because our
drug enforcement agencies have been hurting the drug cartels and they want payback. The idea that a
drug cartel would take such a risk, let alone spend so much money, is a little farfetched, but you do have
to suspend disbelief with spy thrillers, so I went with the premise. I wasn’t too keen on the
characterisation of Carlton, however. As an ex-Special Forces officer he would know about not taking
unnecessary risks, but that is precisely what Gardner has him doing.

Rather than the calculating professional, Gardner portrays Carlton as an amateurish maverick. Ok, it
injects drama, but it detracts from believability. When asking readers to suspend their disbelief, the
author shouldn’t then ask them to suspend even more disbelief, especially so early in the plot. Another
example of this comes later in the book, when we are supposed to believe that a pair of Colombian
gangsters from the barrio would be able to navigate a make-shift mini-submarine with pin point
accuracy, at night, through Force 5 seas to a tiny Cornish beach and arrive spot on time to make their
rendezvous. This is a feat that would challenge the skipper of a Trident submarine, yet these two bozos
manage it with ease - without any navigation equipment more sophisticated than a compass. Later we
are supposed to accept that Garcia, the head of the drugs cartel, a man so paranoid about his security
that he moves his entire operational HQ every few days, would accept into his inner sanctum a woman
who he hardly knows just because she is good at acupuncture. He doesn’t even ask his head of security
to have her checked out. The only bit of the plot I didn’t find far-fetched was the idea of smuggling a
weapon of mass destruction into the UK.

This is a serious threat and one that our security services have reason to worry about. I used a similar
idea in my own book, ‘Mirror Man’, a few years ago. But, that aside, most of what Gardner gives us
defies belief, provides too much detail and not enough characterisation. Most of the bad guys are two
dimensional and the good guys are stereotypes, not identifiable as real people. I think some of the
problems with the book come from the depth of knowledge that Gardner has. He uses jargon freely, but
then realises that his readers may not understand the jargon and has to explain it. Often this is done by
making Carlton ask questions, or suffer an apparent loss of memory so that someone has to explain
things to him. This makes the writing style cumbersome, tedious even. It might have been easier to not
use the jargon in the first place and just stick to plain English. This isn’t really a bad book, but it isn’t a
good one either. Crisis is the first non-fiction work by Frank Gardner, and as befits his day job of BBC
Security Correspondent he has chosen a spy thriller as the genre for his debut novel.

As you would expect from a journalist who has spent a considerable proportion of his career covering
matters relating to National Security, International Affairs and Terrorism, Crisis is a novel packed full of
accurate details, or at least details that feel entirely plausible. From descriptions of the processes and
procedures followed by the UK security services during a national crisis to how Special Forces operate
and deploy, you get the sense that Gardner writes either from first-hand knowledge or from knowing
people with direct experience of similar events, people and places. It gives parts of the book a clear
feeling of plausibility and verisimilitude. It’s a shame therefore, that such details are wasted on a plot
that never feels entirely credible, lead characters who are either bland, misconceived or one
dimensional and some very questionable decisions regarding both pacing of the story and individual
dramatic developments.

The central plot of the book is critical problems from the get go because it fits so poorly with the tone of
the book. The idea of a Colombian drug lord, incensed by successful, British lead attempts to curtail his
business, scheming with the North Koreans to set off a nuclear dirty-bomb in the UK sounds like the stuff
of a lesser Bond movie, and if the rest of Crisis was similarly fantastical it might have worked as a plot
hook. Frank Gardner however, whilst not resorting to Le Carre-style kitchen-sink realism, definitely
wants the reader to feel they’re being shown an accurate

portrayal of contemporary intelligence gathering and espionage, not a world of tricked-out Aston
Martins and bikini-clad babes. In that context the idea that a Colombian drug lord, even one as
moustache twirlingly irredeemable as Nelson Garcia, would go to all the expense, trouble and risk of
mounting such an attack just doesn’t ring true.

As a result the central story is holed below the waterline before it even gets going and no amount of
factual detail regarding the intelligence services or anti-terrorist operations is enough to refloat it. What
might have helped though would have been a central character with enough charisma or complexity to
let the reader overlook the inherent implausibility of the villainous conspiracy. Instead we get Luke
Carlton, and instead of complexity we are given what can best be described as bland competence.
Again, I understand that Gardner is trying hard to keep things within the bounds of the plausible, and ex-
SBS officer Carlton fits that mold to a tee.
However, just because the hero needs to be realistic and human doesn’t mean he needs to be dull, and
giving him a tragic childhood or a slightly complicated love life is not enough to make him
instantaneously more interesting or automatically grant him depth. Gardner needed to work far harder
to create a more rounded, and complex lead character, rather than relying on lazy shortcuts. By
resorting to the latter Crisis is left with a bland-cypher where its hero should be. It’s also lumbered with
an entirely one-dimensional bad guy in Garcia, who never becomes more than a stereotypical drug
baron of the sort beloved by Hollywood action movies in the mid-90 before the war on terror. Gardner
should be congratulated for not falling back on using the standard Islamist-terrorist as the book’s
primary antagonist. It’s just a pity that he does nothing interesting or fresh with the Garcia character to
make him stand out from the crowd.

Although the reader should count themselves lucky that Gardner doesn’t lumber Garcia someone as
pointless and irritating as Elise, Carlton’s entirely superfluous girlfriend, in order to flesh out the drug
lord’s character. I appreciate what Gardner is trying to do with Elise; which is illustrate the complications
and personal compromises those working in Intelligence have to make in order to protect their
countries. Unfortunately by introducing her and then finding ways to shoehorn her into the plot, all
Gardner does is slow down the narrative unnecessarily, add yet another unrealistic and ultimately
superfluous, yet entirely predictable, subplot (from the moment in the opening chapters that you find
out Elise knows martial arts you’re just waiting for her to be placed in a situation where she needs to use
them) and irritate the reader. Honestly, if she had said ‘Babes’ one more time in a way that no real
woman outside of The Only Way Is Essex actually would I would have screamed. Unfortunately Elise is
not the only superfluous element in Crisis, although she is the most significant and irritating. The book is
peppered with excessive detail, unnecessary exposition and minor characters who could be excised
entirely.

We don’t need to spend time with the man organising the Remembrance Sunday ceremony at the
Cenotaph, or need to know so much about the welder working for the bad guys to help them build their
bomb (another entirely unrealistic character). All of these and more could have and should have been
edited out to streamline the plot and cut the page count significantly. Crisis is a book that needs a
propulsive and dynamic narrative. Instead it meanders, lacks focus and is at least 100 pages to long. The
final section does ramp up the tension, although the stakes are set too high for you to ever really believe
that the bad guys will succeed in their goals, but it far too much of a slog to get to that point. Frank
Gardner could, over

time, become a half-decent thriller writer. His inside knowledge certainly gives him an edge, and Crisis
does have some areas of promise. He just needs to tighten up his plotting, take some more time in
crafting his characters and find a ruthless editor who will cut out the narrative deadwood and keep his
stories focused and moving forward.

Crisis, as the cover itself might give you an idea, is about a weapon targeting London. Intel from the
investigation into the killing of a case handler reveals that much. And over the course of the novel,
various agencies work to stop that weapon. Given the perpetrators are led by a ruthless Colombian drug
baron, MI6 send Luke Carlton to Bogota. Fast, taut, tense, accurate, says Forsyth about the novel. I
agree with the last three but I think accuracy brought detailing and detailing stopped it from being fast.
Also, there's not much unpredictability. A future course of action is spoken of in the current
conversation so when it actually happens, the reader isn't necessarily shocked or surprised by it. Villains
make mistakes under no pressure, maybe because of ego, but again, given the plot, it leads to the
reader somewhat guessing the consequence of the mistake. There are a lot of characters but other than
Luke, Elise Angela and Jorge, the rest aren't really memorable. I liked the narration but at one time,
thought to shelve as DNF.

After many years as an SBS commando, Luke Carlton needed a change of pace and a short-term contract
with SIS seemed like the perfect fit. With impeccable Spanish from a large part of his childhood spent in
South America and a razor-sharp mind, Luke is happy to see where this leads him. Only his first big
mission is to uncover why a station-leader in Columbia has been murdered. Luke figures with his
personal knowledge, some good connections and his military training there shouldn’t be a problem, only
Luke didn’t realize just how powerful and ruthless his enemies are – or how far they’re willing to go to
achieve their objective. This is the first of currently three books about Luke Carlton and I have to admit I
really enjoyed it. The writing style has a very solid British spy/espionage feel to it and more than a few
times throughout the full-length novel I was reminded of a Bond sort of storyline or feel to the
atmosphere. At the same time, though, there was a strong touch of the current world circumstances
and a very modern feel to it all.

This is not a cheesy style of story, but just a very British type of espionage thriller. Readers who want a
high level of realism and a modern story should find this really suits their tastes. There was a lot of
realism to the international aspect of the plot too. I didn’t find many of the characters to be overdrawn
or caricature-like, which in itself was refreshing. I also enjoyed the fact that Luke’s personal history was
where a lot of his talents lay – having spent much of his childhood in South America it made sense he
knew the local scenes, customs and languages very well. With his extended stint in the military, it made
sense he could handle himself in a rough situation and had plenty of organizational skills and a sharp
mind. I really enjoyed the fact the author had covered a lot of these bases and didn’t just write a movie-
like action thriller that had huge holes in it. Readers looking for a tightly woven plot should also find this
book very appealing. While there is plenty of action, much of the first section of the book is laying the
groundwork – introducing Luke, showing his current situation as a newbie in the SIS office and showing
how all the puzzle pieces are arranged. While I did not find this a slow start to the story, neither was it a
ramped-up, heavily action orientated type of beginning that a lot of thrillers are expected to have
nowadays. I would strongly suggest sticking with the book if you find the beginning a little slow – the
action definitely intensifies as the story

progresses and I found this a real page-turning thriller the further I went. With excellent characters, a
modern and realistic outlook to our current world and solid plotting and pacing, I thought this was an
exceptional spy/thriller style of story and I am eager to read the author’s next offering.

Frank Gardner spent years as a foreign correspondent, travelling to some of the world’s most embattled
areas. In 2004 he was shot six times by Al-Qaeda sympathisers, and his cameraman died in the same
assault. Since then he has been the BBC’s Security Correspondent. He does, therefore, know his stuff
when it comes to the interaction of the various intelligence agencies, and it shows in this novel. The
pace is fairly furious, with the action moving between London, North Korea and the more remote
reaches of the Colombian rain forest. The pace never lags, and his protagonist, Luke Carlton (formerly in
the Special Boat Service and now on contract to MI6) is eminently resourceful. The book is, however,
rooted in realism, despite the hectic pace at which the plot develops, and pays attention to current
themes such as rendition and what means are legally acceptable for the intelligence and enforcement
services, even when faced with the potentially greatest threats to national security. While the pace if
fairly furious, and action abounds, I felt it still veered more towards the le Carre school of espionage.

In this novel Frank Gardner blends his journalistic talent with personal experience; he describes the pain
Luke Carlton endures from a drill used on his foot, and subsequently he has to use a wheel chair. This
personal side of the novel made me appreciate it all the more. It is a fun read and as close to watching a
movie as possible, with product placement and all the excitement of an action flick. I admire Frank's vast
knowledge of the Middle East, and his ability to speak Arabic, but I had no idea he can be just as
knowledgeable about Latin culture. Frank's subtle sense of humor ebbs now and then to give a nice
break from the edgy stuff, he writes that a London bar that serves cocktails with frilly umbrellas has a
feel of enforced jollity. The writing is fast paced and draws to an end that shows the strength of
Intelligence in preventing terror attacks. In that sense, it succeeds in being a source of comfort. Although
this is a hefty book, you cannot put it down until you get to the end. A fun, exciting and well-paced read
that feels like the heir to Feederick Forsyth's techno thrillers.

Exciting in places, without information dumps, this is a good holiday read and one that although
cinematic and entertaining would be something that I would chose to read again. It has certain
predictability about it, unfortunately, but still read it for the journey whilst you're on a sun lunge, and I
think you'll be enjoy it. Stupendous! Absolutely brilliant novel. I was hooked from start to finish: fast-
paced, action-packed, thrilling, full of suspense and drama this book has it all. Incredibly well written,
easy to read & follow. the plot entices, teases & thrills you all the way through. Great for those who read
in short bursts too, with brief chapters which help the feeling of racing against time. I cannot
recommend this book enough and I can't wait to read the follow-up. Very gripping and enjoyable;
reminds me of reading Clancy's techno-thrillers in the 1990's! Looking forward to Ultimatum!