Identity Theory

Rating:
Summary: Award-winning Australian should be better known here
Review: Although Australian author Temple has won his country's Ned Kelly crime fiction award three times, this is his American debut. And a fine one it is, delivering a complex plot of spies, information dealing and murder.

Protagonist John Anselm, an American, lives alone in his ancestral home in Hamburg, Germany, and works as an information dealer for a struggling firm, finding people, things and secrets. The owner is an old friend, with plenty of his own shady secrets. Anselm used to be a roving foreign correspondent until he was taken hostage in Beirut. His captive experience has left him haunted by fears and demons, his memory fragmented.

In the prologue we meet mercenary Con Nieman, whose security job ends in a bloodbath, leaving him in possession of a tape showing American soldiers massacring an African village. What this means and why its recovery is important enough for "collateral damage" not to be a problem, weaves together a story of ambition, avarice, political evil and expedience, and even love. Temple's characters are complex and intelligent, his writing is spare and eloquent and the tight plot is exotic and suspenseful. Readers will be looking forward to finding more Temple novels in local bookstores.

Rating:
Summary: (4.5) Be careful what you ask for...
Review: I wanted to find a book so engrossing that I wouldn't want it to end and I certainly found it in Identity Theory. Dark Continents, Special Forces and spy networks in the age of electronic communication... all conspire to reveal death squads and mass murder in the name of peace and freedom. This is no plot for conspiracy theory junkies, but a believable network of things that go bump in the night, disgorging certain facts that are worth killing to hide. Anything to avoid international embarrassment.

There is a video tape, the recording of a village massacre, in the hands of one man, a South African mercenary. When he tries to sell that tape, alarms go off around the world, particularly London, Germany and the United States. All this is past history, long considered safely buried and it is unacceptable that such images should reach a live audience. To this end, factions move to block that one South African mercenary, who gets lucky once too often.

A newspaper woman in London wants to buy the tape; frustrated in her attempts, she doggedly pursues any leads. A purveyor of information supplies relevant data to clients, no questions asked as long as the client pays well. Until the long-forgotten past emerges and the pieces become too obvious to ignore. And the mercenary dodges and feints, avoiding discovery, but aware that the odds are against him. This is a world where collateral damage is as acceptable as income tax; a certain number of losses are expected and pass mostly unnoticed. When that delicate balance is disturbed and information leaks out, disparate forces unite to stifle those asking dangerous questions.

This novel is a disturbing read, but it is not a book to be easily put aside. Temple builds the tension and ratchets up the action to the page-turning end, an excellent, well-written thriller that evokes malevolent shadows of intrigue and special ops. We all know these forces are at work out there somewhere. We just don't know the details or suspect the urgency of certain information. Temple reminds us that the surface has cracked; categorical denial by any government is imminent. Luan Gianes/2004.


Rating:
Summary: Story that stays with you between reads
Review: This is my first book for Temple, and I am extremely impressed. The writing is direct, simple, but very effective. The story switches back and forth from three main prospectives with enough variation to keep the reader entertained through the multiple views. Full of action, suspense, and very intelligent. I highly recommend this book for anyone interested in a good thriller, or even a good read for that matter.