Deadly Protocol
Roger Corke
One of the pleasures of being a writer is being offered a first look at a new book. It’s even more exciting when the author is new to the genre. Roger Corke is a documentary maker and journalist, and that attention to detail and the research skills necessary have been put to great effect in his debut thriller Deadly Protocol.
I thoroughly enjoyed this ripping yarn, set in the world of cutting edge science. It was pacy, twisty, well-researched and scarily believable. The science was also realistic, with enough detail to make it believable, no howlers (the author is a journalist and has done his research) and deceptively simple.
The novel opens with our hero Ronnie, a cancer biologist, waking up in her boss’s house, to find him very dead and with no idea what happened.
From then on, things get really bad!
Who murdered him and why? The man was a hero in the cancer community, due to be honoured for his ground-breaking research. Who could possibly want to kill him? Ronnie finds herself thrown into a conspiracy that spans continents and which grows deeper and darker with every chapter. The final revelation is both unexpected, scary and worryingly plausible.
Journalists are trained to be concise, whilst novelists tend towards the verbose. Corke has trod that fine line carefully, resulting in a story that balances pace and description, with a well-rounded cast of characters. Something I especially enjoyed was the mid-point twist. It seemed as though the culprit had been largely identified. That’s fine for a thriller, and it gives the author a choice. We know who did it, now buckle up as our heroes travel the globe trying to bring them justice. Or, maybe we have it wrong? Maybe the story isn’t as straightforward as it seems? As much as I love the former approach, Corke decides to mess with us and his characters and go deeper and throw in a few more twists and turns.
The result is a deeply satisfying conclusion. Even better, a brief excerpt from the next book in the series, shows that we haven’t seen the last of Ronnie. I’m looking forward to seeing where Corke takes us next.
I thoroughly enjoyed this ripping yarn, set in the world of cutting edge science. It was pacy, twisty, well-researched and scarily believable. The science was also realistic, with enough detail to make it believable, no howlers (the author is a journalist and has done his research) and deceptively simple.
The novel opens with our hero Ronnie, a cancer biologist, waking up in her boss’s house, to find him very dead and with no idea what happened.
From then on, things get really bad!
Who murdered him and why? The man was a hero in the cancer community, due to be honoured for his ground-breaking research. Who could possibly want to kill him? Ronnie finds herself thrown into a conspiracy that spans continents and which grows deeper and darker with every chapter. The final revelation is both unexpected, scary and worryingly plausible.
Journalists are trained to be concise, whilst novelists tend towards the verbose. Corke has trod that fine line carefully, resulting in a story that balances pace and description, with a well-rounded cast of characters. Something I especially enjoyed was the mid-point twist. It seemed as though the culprit had been largely identified. That’s fine for a thriller, and it gives the author a choice. We know who did it, now buckle up as our heroes travel the globe trying to bring them justice. Or, maybe we have it wrong? Maybe the story isn’t as straightforward as it seems? As much as I love the former approach, Corke decides to mess with us and his characters and go deeper and throw in a few more twists and turns.
The result is a deeply satisfying conclusion. Even better, a brief excerpt from the next book in the series, shows that we haven’t seen the last of Ronnie. I’m looking forward to seeing where Corke takes us next.
