Show Me a Hero

Tom Ashman is the hero: his enemy is Colonel Julian Cunningham, chief of the secret police. This is Britain in the 1980s, ruled by a left-wing tyranny still masquerading as some kind of 'democratic socialism'. But the book is not about politics, hardly even about terrorism. It is about love, hate, heroism and - above all - betrayal. A major bullion robbery told in all its details with gripping efficiency, even the clash of armed forces, are not much more than superb adornments to this astonishing book. Characters and morals are the heart of the matter, and are weirdly illuminated in the confrontation between Ashman and Cunningham, the centre piece of the story. Cunningham lives up to the author's reference to him as 'the last great Shakespearian villian'. Cunningham says: 'You're doomed because you can't adapt. You're out of date, like a knight in armour ... it doesn't take a hero to press a button. Not needed and not adaptable. "Cometh the hour, cometh the man". Now cometh the hour of the adaptable man".