Awesome beginning, fantastic end, and an entertaining, if slightly confusing, middle.

The explosive action-packed opening drags readers straight into the story as they experience the shock of a London bombing along with Con Lindlow, who is caught in the blast. But as we follow him through its aftermath, we discover he used to have a connection with the IRA. When he refuses to discuss it, he instantly becomes the focus of the police investigation, although DCI {}, the officer in charge of the case, soon concludes that neither Lindlow nor Lindlow’s brother, who was killed by the bomb, was responsible. However, his attempt to find the true perpetrator is hindered by the other government departments involved. They have something to hide about their own involvement with the bomber, and are determined to lay the blame on the two brothers.

When {} is forced off the case because of his continual insistence that Lindlow is innocent, he forms an alliance with {Lindlow} to uncover the truth. Lindlow soon discovers that his brother worked for the IRA, and finds documents that suggest he had been tasked with finding a pair of bombers intent on derailing the Irish peace talks. The IRA force Lindlow to continue his brother’s mission to track down the two-man splinter group before their final atrocity can take place.

The well constructed plot does suffer from a large cast of characters, and there are times in the middle of the book when this is confusing. This is exacerbated by Porter having given two of the policemen very similar names (Forbes and Foyle).

One point that jarred for me was a coincidence related to breaking the encryption on a set of computer disks. The codes were based on the lettering used to represent the different genetic enzymes in DNA. This just happens to be Lindlow’s specialist area (he is a research scientist), and he is therefore miraculously able to help with their decryption. That felt very contrived.

But those problems aside, this is a beautifully written thriller that’s hard to put down, even though the action is a little lacking in the first half once the opening scene has passed. Remembrance Day is a very enjoyable read and forms a good introduction to Lindlow, who is the main character in Porter’s subsequent two books, A Spy’s Life and Empire State. ( )