AN EXPLOSIVE NEW ESPIONAGE THRILLER FROM THE SKI CLUB’S FORMER PRESIDENT
Frank Gardner: author, BBC security correspondent and former Ski Club president
Arnie Wilson finds his pulse racing as he follows Frank Gardner’s trusty MI6 agent from the Arctic Circle to Wiltshire in the best-selling thriller OutbreakOh my! How did I manage to put this book down? This is a thriller in which I simply didn’t want the thrills to end, thinking, as I approached the epilogue, “please don’t stop!”
I must be careful not to reveal too much about Outbreak, the latest novel by the BBC’s security correspondent and former Ski Club president, Frank Gardner. The explosive saga starts in Svalbard in the Norwegian Arctic, where three scientists from the UK’s Arctic Research Station battle their way through a blizzard in search of shelter.
“Their identities: unknown. Their vision: chilling. Their intentions: devastating…” Something revolting – “rank and foetid” and even worse than Covid – is about to trigger a global crisis. And it’s set to be launched in the UK.
The pandemic is man-made and, perhaps inevitably, Russia is under suspicion. But it’s not that simple. The plot takes you not just to various Russian locations, but also to Vilnius, Lithuania and Porton Down laboratory in Wiltshire (no surprise there!).
“Nerves of steel are needed by the reader”
You might assume that Outbreak is a brilliantly opportunist spin-off from the Covid pandemic. But you’d be wrong. Frank wrote his fast-paced thriller before any of us had heard of Coronavirus. Although he did take the opportunity to retrospectively add a brilliant Covid-style undercurrent to it.
Rather like Peter James, another writer whose books I love to read, Frank’s book has no long chapters. Each of the 115 chapters lasts only two or three pages – which makes the book very easy to read and very hard to put down. The clever part is that the exciting bio-terrorism plot doesn’t reach a conclusion for almost 400 pages – 400 pages of frantic page-turning.
On page 366 I see I scribbled in the margin “nerves of steel needed by the reader”. And trust me, it’s far from being the only gripping page!
As The Times has said of his previous thrillers: “Gardner skilfully mixes knowledge garnered as the BBC’s security correspondent with breathless action.”
Disappointingly, perhaps, there’s no skiing in the book despite all the snow. (I was hoping Frank would chuck in a line or two about trekking through the Arctic wastes on Ranulph Fiennes-style cross-country skis.)
A reassuring aspect of the book is that, although its MI6 hero comes close to death, it’s unlikely he’ll actually die as he’ll almost certainly feature in Frank’s next novel. Just to be safe, I won’t divulge his name…