Like a lot of spy procedurals, this book’s plot is complex but there is plenty of good characterisation that gives the narrative the kind of depth you need to feel involved in the story. The book also examines some different themes, themes divorced from national security in the digital age, such as mental illness.
Brigitte Sharpe is an MI6 operative specialising in computers and hacking and she becomes involved in a security breach involving a secret drone software project when a friend of hers, who she only knows online as Ten, is killed in suspicious circumstances. Giles Finlay, Bridge’s superior at the SIS, sends her to France to uncover the mole they suspect has infiltrated the software development facility that is located there, and she takes time out of her schedule to drop in on her sister, Izzy, and her niece Stephanie and brother-in-law Frederic.
Having grown up in France, Bridge has an advantage onsite, and she soon discovers who has been sending details of the programming code for the Department of Defence’s drones to the buyer. But the suspicions SIS has about the source of the plot start to fray and Bridge is soon back in London trying to neutralise the threat.
This competent fiction has many layers and not everything that you suspect is true, or even relevant to the greater plan that the author has dreamed up. In the first phase of the denouement, traditional means are privileged and there is plenty of hand-to-hand fighting and wielding of guns. But once the narrative comes closer to its true ending it recovers some of its IT bona fides and Bridge’s roots as a university hacker return to the fore.
There is something about this author, who made his name initially in comics, that reminds me of Stieg Larsson, who wrote ‘The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo’. There’s an authenticity of vision and a dedication to the technological potential of this kind of fiction that makes me remember Lisbet Salander and her devious ways.
Bridge has a similar vulnerability, for a start. In Johnston’s novel there are many deviations from the main storyline, often delivered at a point of high drama, that give you information about the main character so that you can identify with her more. You feel the author’s commitment to a larger cause, a broader palette, a wider set of colours, as he constructs his narrative with an eye to finding a home for Bridge within the labyrinthine corridors of power in the national capital. And secondary characters such as Stephanie are given a fullness and completeness that help you to form emotional connections to the people featured in the story.
Bridge is a fitting successor to Salander for her native guile and cleverness. She is a brilliant and idiosyncratic performer who has a heart that you can sense beating in her chest. In the end, you are transfixed by her intricate mind and by her generous heart, which is still recovering from the death of a former operational partner. But even more than that: you are transported to another place and to another world of realities, a place that seems so close to our own but that ends up being just out of reach.
Brigitte Sharpe is an MI6 operative specialising in computers and hacking and she becomes involved in a security breach involving a secret drone software project when a friend of hers, who she only knows online as Ten, is killed in suspicious circumstances. Giles Finlay, Bridge’s superior at the SIS, sends her to France to uncover the mole they suspect has infiltrated the software development facility that is located there, and she takes time out of her schedule to drop in on her sister, Izzy, and her niece Stephanie and brother-in-law Frederic.
Having grown up in France, Bridge has an advantage onsite, and she soon discovers who has been sending details of the programming code for the Department of Defence’s drones to the buyer. But the suspicions SIS has about the source of the plot start to fray and Bridge is soon back in London trying to neutralise the threat.
This competent fiction has many layers and not everything that you suspect is true, or even relevant to the greater plan that the author has dreamed up. In the first phase of the denouement, traditional means are privileged and there is plenty of hand-to-hand fighting and wielding of guns. But once the narrative comes closer to its true ending it recovers some of its IT bona fides and Bridge’s roots as a university hacker return to the fore.
There is something about this author, who made his name initially in comics, that reminds me of Stieg Larsson, who wrote ‘The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo’. There’s an authenticity of vision and a dedication to the technological potential of this kind of fiction that makes me remember Lisbet Salander and her devious ways.
Bridge has a similar vulnerability, for a start. In Johnston’s novel there are many deviations from the main storyline, often delivered at a point of high drama, that give you information about the main character so that you can identify with her more. You feel the author’s commitment to a larger cause, a broader palette, a wider set of colours, as he constructs his narrative with an eye to finding a home for Bridge within the labyrinthine corridors of power in the national capital. And secondary characters such as Stephanie are given a fullness and completeness that help you to form emotional connections to the people featured in the story.
Bridge is a fitting successor to Salander for her native guile and cleverness. She is a brilliant and idiosyncratic performer who has a heart that you can sense beating in her chest. In the end, you are transfixed by her intricate mind and by her generous heart, which is still recovering from the death of a former operational partner. But even more than that: you are transported to another place and to another world of realities, a place that seems so close to our own but that ends up being just out of reach.
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