Old Enemies by Michael Dobbs

Michael Dobbs will be well known to many of you through his “House of Cards” books which were also made into a highly successful TV series. Here Dobbs returns to Parliament as his background but he does not bring the same urgency of writing and plausibility that he did with House of Cards. Also, this is the first book I have been sent in which the publicity blurb included the CV of the lead character; Harry Jones MP, ex SAS, millionaire and general all round good guy!! However Harry Jones is no Francis Urquhart!




This is the fourth in the Harry Jones series and the plot is about a young son of an editor of a major UK newspaper who is kidnapped while skiing in Switzerland and taken to a remote cottage just north of Trieste where he is held by South African mercenaries working for a corrupt African acting president. Harry is currently a senior MP and just about to be offered the Foreign Secretary post, he is close personal friends with the President of USA and Prime Minister of UK. He is ex-SAS with a reputation for leaving Parliament to help friends in impossible situations. There is of course a tangled love life woven in. In fact, there are just so many sub-plots going on in this book it is difficult to remain focussed on the main theme.

Anyhoo, the main plot revolves round the kidnapping of a 16 year old boy whose father runs one of the largest UK newspapers who is in possession of a diary which, if published, will mean the downfall of a person currently acting as President of an African country and who is expecting to be elected to that role in the forthcoming elections. He wants those diaries suppressed, at least until he is in power. The boy’s father is not in a position to withhold the publication as the newspaper is in financial difficulties and this is expected to lift them out of that difficulty. So we have a kidnapped boy, African potentate, mercenaries, newspaper magnets and Harry : super-MP. Now where does the title Old Enemies come from? Well, to complicate matters further, the grandfather of the boy is none other than Sean – an ex PIRA man who is the sworn enemy of Harry (ex-SAS); but they have to come together and work alongside to rescue the boy. Complicated? Yes!

It works though!

Plausibility aside, it is a novel after all, the book reads easily and one is drawn to it to see how it all pans out. Harry deals with everything in his usual efficient and unorthodox manner, getting into and out of, scrapes, using contacts and his experience from the SAS to resolve matters. Of course, all the time he is also having to deal with the fact the PM is trying to get hold of him to offer him the Foreign Secretary post, his love life is unravelling and he has to find a way of working with a former senior member of the PIRA.

For a good holiday read or just something to pass the time this book is fine and ticks all the boxes. It is not a classic, and I think Dobbs has just put this out as yet another in the series rather than put a bit of effort into making it a must-read. Using the time honoured system of Wine Glasses, I award this book 2½ Winos.

A-Y



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