Mark Dawson (2)

This could so easily have been a very good novel, but sadly fell short.

The basic premise is that John Milton, until recently employed as a fixer (for which read assassin) by MI6 has had a crisis of confidence. On his last hit for the organisation, in a remote corner of France, he had duly despatched his main _targets, along with a gendarme who had the misfortune to intrude upon the scene by chance, but was prevented by hitherto unprecedented qualms from killing the victims’ young child, who was, as a consequence, left as a potential witness to what had happened. Such a demonstration of conscience was not what he was paid for, and he found himself suspended without pay while his employers considered what should be done with him.

As he left the department’s offices he has a strange encounter on the underground system, which leads to him moving temporarily to a housing estate in one of the more disadvantaged areas of east London, where gang culture is taking control.

Unfortunately, I found the writer’s half-hearted attempts to convey urban decay and rampant deprivation rather off-putting, as was the unrelenting woodenness of Milton as a character. There were times when he struggled even to become two-dimensional, and ascension to the third was far beyond him.… (more)