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THE MURDER EXCHANGE starts with a man looking down the barrel of a gun, seemingly facing certain death. The reader is then taken back to just over two weeks before, from the alternating viewpoints of two first person narrators. The question is, which one of them is the narrator of the first chapter? So begins this gritty, compelling and intriguing thriller. Max Iversson - ex-soldier, ex-mercenary, now partner in a security firm - is hired by dodgy London club-owner Roy Fowler to provide some muscle in Fowler's upcoming meeting with some local 'businessmen'. Intuition tells Iversson not to take the job, but money talks louder than intuition and Iversson gets a small, well trusted team together. Needless to say, things go wrong - about as wrong as they can go - and Iversson goes into hiding from just about everybody. John Gallen is a policeman investigating the death of a nightclub bouncer, poisoned by cobra venom. Two totally separate events? Well, maybe, except the bouncer worked at Fowler's club. The narratives of Iversson and Gallen alternate for most of the rest of the book in an extremely tense, and very clever, way. The two men have taken different paths in life but are quite similar in many ways. Simon Kernick has done a marvellous job of differentiating between them, and giving them separate voices, while at the same time making it impossible to tell who is the narrator of the first chapter. Iversson is matter of fact, wry, and fearless. Gallen is cynical, dogged and intelligent. Neither have unblemished records and are prepared to admit it. Both of them have been shaped by things they have seen and done. I found my allegiance shifted a number of times between the two characters. The plot is fast paced and full of twists and turns and surprises. The first few chapters reel you in and the rest of the book just doesn't let you go. THE MURDER EXCHANGE is an exciting, involving and very well written tale with some great characters. These are not heroic heroes or romantiiczed villains. They are realistic, believable and, sometimes, very scary people. A dark book with touches of equally black humour. Highly recommended.
Reviewed by Donna Moore, August 2003
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