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Like so many other writers, Brian Haig fell into his current profession by accident. He spent 22 years in the army, finally achieving the exalted position of special assistant to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. It was not until the birth of his fourth child that he (like his protagonist Major Sean Drummond) realised that a soldier's pay is inadequate. Unlike lawyer Sean, Haig had his children's future about which he needed to think, so, on the offer of a job in the private sector, he left the army. Unfortunately for him at the time but fortunately for lovers of legal fiction the job evaporated and Haig was left with no paid employment and time on his hands -- time in which to read . He became convinced that he could write thrillers as good as those which he was reading and so was born his protagonist, Major Sean Drummond. SECRET SANCTION proved the author could satisfy the reading public and Haig followed it with MORTAL ALLIES, PRIVATE SECTOR and, more latterly, THE KINGMAKER. There is a strong military tradition in the Haig family -- is there anyone who has not heard of Brian's father, Alexander Haig? And of course Brian spent a great deal of time in the army. There is also a strong legal tradition, with a brother being a lawyer. What further inspiration could a budding author seek in order to create a believable world with a credible protagonist? Sean Drummond, therefore, is a military lawyer. In MORTAL ALLIES, Haig takes the army tradition of homophobia and sets it beside the 'don't ask, don't tell' rule which enabled gays to enter the armed forces more easily. The hapless Drummond is summoned from vacation in Bermuda to Seoul in Korea. His law school nemesis, Katherine Carlson, has requested he be her co-counsel in the trial of a gay army captain, Thomas Whitehall. Whitehall is accused of rape, murder and necrophilia. The corpse is that of the son of the Defence Minister of South Korea and homosexuality is viewed by Koreans as something shameful so that Lee No Tae is, so far as South Korea is concerned, the straight victim of gay rape. Whitehall maintains that No was his willing, gay lover and he has no memory of any fighting that could have resulted in his being found lying next to the violated corpse of his inamorato. Two soldiers of lower rank attended the party where the murder occurred and, while they deny witnessing the killing, insist Whitehall must have been the murderer. Sean meets his client and becomes convinced of his innocence. How he sets out to vindicate Whitehall makes for fascinating reading. Haig introduces scenes of Seoul which are most absorbing. He displays an apparent knowledge of Korea and its customs that, despite the horrors he also depicts, tempts the reader to view them at first hand. There is violence, gore, conspiracy theory accompanying a thumping good tale which portrays the difficulties that abound for gays in the armed forces. Drummond and Carlson fight (in Drummond's case, physically) hard for their client, in the process uncovering almost unbelievably complex threads to the puzzling maze. For readers who enjoy legal thrillers this is a good read: for those readers who enjoy tales about the military, it should be equally enthralling.
Reviewed by Denise Wels Pickles, February 2004
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