John Creed (1)

John Creed is the nom de plum of Eoin McNamee (whom I have reviewed for The Ultras, Resurrection Man, and The Blue Tango), a fine Irish writer (there is even a passing, early reference to Robert Nairic, the main character in The Ultras). The Sirius Crossing is different than the books written as Eoin McNamee: less detailed, less focus on human and social interactions and relationships, more emphasis on fast-paced action. Jack Valentine is a British secret service operative given the job of retrieving evidence related to operations by American Special Forces in Ireland, twenty-five years earlier. Some interests want the evidence found for the power it would confer in controlling powerful people, those powerful people themselves want it destroyed; Jack is in the middle of this and becomes a target for both groups, with the added complication of a very close friend being hunted by Irish killers for his alleged betrayal of the cause. Creed depicts well the murky, immoral, amoral world of clandestine operations where no one is to be trusted, everyone seems to have a hidden agenda, and where life is cheap, but where a rigid code of honour can even reach across political divides. A good read.… (meer)