Maverick FBI Agent Vince Piper is back. This latest hugely enjoyable thriller from Tom Neale sees him at the centre of a plot involving hired assassins, high class escorts, a daring diamond robbery and a billionaire with a radical approach to cleaning up politics.
Travelling from the US to the wilds of Norfolk via the London the book moves along at a breathless pace. The sharp and often very funny dialogue crackles off the page and every chapter; it seems sees Piper and his companions escape from death by the skin of their collective teeth at least once.
The whole thing is, of course, wildly improbable and the most splendid fun, not least because Neale manages to find enough humanity in his main character to make him more than just another bullet proof hero.
Copper Kiss is a novel that is crying out to be adapted for the big screen. When it is I suspect that, unlike many recent Hollywood thrillers, the film will be worth seeing even if you have already read the book.
credited: Adam Colclough