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The Sukhoi SU 25 is a twin jet armoured ground attack fighter with a top speed of less than 600 mph, a combat radius of around 250 miles and a ferry range of around 1,500. The two seat version suffers from a slightly reduced performance. So how does one of these lumbering machines, nicknamed 'Grach' – Rook – by the Russian air force, armed with a nuclear weapon, manage to cross Europe undetected by early warning systems or air forces to attack an American stealth fighter at a UK base then go on to blast GCHQ, the heart of Britain's interception and electronic warfare network? If you can seriously believe that's possible, you'll believe anything. Renegade M16 agent, Daniel Marchant, hunted by the Russian SVR, the CIA and his own service, escapes death so many times and in such unlikely ways that an army of cats would be jealous of his indestructibility. A healthy ability to suspend disbelief if also needed when Marchant finally succeeds in thwarting an Iranian sponsored attack on an American Carrier Strike Group in the Gulf, having first unmasked a traitor at the heart of MI6. His Indian-born jihadist recruit, has struck a Faustian deal. This freelance agent of Islamist terror will keep his enormous following from attacks on Britain if Marchant, his half-brother, will aid him in one huge strike at the imperialist Shaitan Americans. So it goes on, increasingly more improbable, the pace of the action, a tale of doomed love and a dose of kinky sex thrown in for good measure, covering up massive deficiencies in a plot more like a poor video game than a series work of fiction. There is also a decided anti-Western bias, with the Americans largely portrayed as ignorant bullies, and British politicians in a coalition government are weak and vacillating, so much the poodle to their transatlantic masters that they allow US Marines to seal off MI6's South Bank headquarters. This mish-mash of every modern spy thriller plus the wildest inventions of the producers of the Bond and Bourne films bolstered by a few facts – the MI6 traitor Kim Philby gets a good airing as does the purchase of the world's fastest powerboat by Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps with the stated aim of converting production models to fast attacks boats – is just not believable on any level. Escapist fiction is fine as long as it retains some touch with reality, but this doesn't. In his acknowledgements, Stock thanks his three children for their contribution to the book, particularly the near non-stop action, which he says came largely over the breakfast table, but DIRTY LITTLE SECRET is without a doubt a book that should have stayed there. §John Cleal is a former soldier and journalist with an interest in medieval history. He divides his time between France and England.
Reviewed by John Cleal, August 2012
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