Well respected BBC security correspondent Frank Gardner is a man with his finger on the geopolitical pulse. His Luke Carlton thrillers have traversed issues and regions around the world and now with the fifth in the series, Ballistic, he is as topical as ever. The backdrop is something that might actually be happening as we watch the news each night. Here, the United States has withdrawn from NATO which has become ECTO, the Europe and Canada Treaty Organisation. Weaker, but still afloat.
If you’ve been following the series, you’ll know that Charlton took a battering in the last book, Invasion. So he’s on a forced reintegration as Ballistic opens. The novel references the Iran war and the Straits of Hormuz, something Gardner reports on regularly in real life, but the action begins much farther north in Murmansk. This is the home of Russia’s Northern Fleet, which includes the country’s nuclear submarines. Memories persist of the Kursk disaster in 2000 but the new generation of nuclear submarines are fearsome boats, state of the art.
Luke Carleton is just getting to understand that completing the readjustment course is the only way to get back on active duty, so he has to stop resisting the course tutors and kicking his heels, hoping it’ll soon be over. The base at Loch Glass is designed to prove protocols matter at MI6.
The Novorossiya, a nuclear ballistic missile carrier submarine was launched in 2025, today it is setting out for a mission on the Greenland, Iceland, UK Gap, GIUK. Russia is about to test strategic nuclear weapons somewhere in the Arctic ocean.
Hundreds of kilometres away at Alakurtti on the Finnish border, a Russian military base, Major Orlov has just sent a message to MI6 advising that their missile silos are loaded for operation Holy Trinity, using a new generation of Russian hypersonic missiles. Orlov realises that he is under suspicion by his superiors and that if he doesn’t run they will take him and there will be no mercy. His only hope is to get across the border and to Britain.
While America is distracted by Iran and not paying proper attention to Ukraine or this bubbling crisis, alarm bells ring in Whitehall. Following a hastily arranged COBRA meeting of the cabinet office, SIS HQ at Vauxhall Cross swings into operation. If they are going to find Orlov and get answers the man for the job is Luke Carleton. He is hastily recalled from Scotland and sent to Finland where he joins a special ops team. They are soon in Russia where the mission runs into deep trouble. From there the story travels back and forth between Russia, England, Finland and the Caribbean.
There are elements of the speculative thriller here but what Gardner manages to convey very well is the uncertainty and volatility of our current world crisis. Not many authors have managed to do it this well, so far. You would expect the novel to be politically astute but Gardner has always written page-turning thrillers with plenty of action and this is right in that vein.
Luke Carlton is fun to spend time with, strong and capable under pressure, but he bleeds like any person and we never enter the realm of Bond-level fantasy. Familiar characters from the series like Sid Khan make reappearances. There are a few acronyms to deal with but Gardner is clear on where responsibilities and roles begin and end from the top of government to front line action. The stakes are high, a possible third world war looms.
This is the kind of book Crime Fiction Lover would recommend for a beach read, a holiday getaway, an adventure you can immerse yourself in totally. If this kind of thriller is your bag there’s also Betrayal by David Gilman that check out.
Bantam Books
Print/Kindle/iTunes
£9.99
CFL Rating: 4 Stars
