Book Review: Incognito by Khaled Talib

Thank you to Author Khaled Talib for my copy of this book. I was quite taken by the cover, with that ‘Anonymous’ mask, and also the quote on the front cover telling us that the book is filled with “intrigue, action and conspiracy”.

Description:

Specialist Ayden Tanner is dispatched by a covert division of the global hacker group, Anonymous, to find the pope who is missing.

A frantic search begins in Italy and beyond its borders amid speculation that the Holy See may know more than they are telling.

Published May 15th 2017 by World Castle Publishing

My Thoughts:

The Author begins his book with an acknowledgements section, and this gave me a taster of what was to come as he mentions what we now know as ‘fake news’, and how we should question “what has been deemed to be the truth”.   Incognito is a very fast paced thriller, which begins with the Pope going missing, presumed kidnapped. An ex SAS solidier and 2 other agents are given the task of finding what has happened and returning the Pope safely. 

There is plenty of mention of religion, Muslims and Catholics and it all seemed very relevant to everything that has been going on in the world recently. For me, it seemed like the words were chosen very carefully, there is political correctness. I wonder if the agents would have been so ‘correct’ if this story was not fiction. 

The story is very fast paced and I would not be surprised, if this book reaches a wide audience that it would be suggested to be made into a film, it gives a real idea of a James Bond type theme and the Author actually mentions Bond in his words. There are a few parts of this book which made me smile, amongst the thrills and kills!

“Just because you’ve got a James Bond accent, doesn’t mean you’re more intelligent than me”

I think the lives of the agents were portrayed well. (I guess based on my knowledge of those Hollywood movies!). Moving fast and almost unseen, with a variety of passports and identities. They are loners who are given jobs and risk their lives doing them. However, when they have their ‘down time’….

“Yeah, I’ll stay here…..they’ve got Netflix”    😉    (like I said some bits of this made me smile at the normality, whereas other parts were full of action and suspicion.

My favourite parts of this book are the beginning where the Author adds in some thoughts which I found close to my heart:

“it is always advisable not to make permanent decisions based on temporary emotion”

I also liked the end where the action comes to a final conclusion. To be honest I found the middle part a little to fast paced in a James Bond kind of way for me. I am not a fan of these types of films, and the book gave me that impression a little to much. However, this is just my opinion and I’m sure that kind of book would appeal to many readers.

The book was well written, and the characters developed. I can actually quite imagine the main character Ayden to be waiting for his next mission to be given to him.  

 

Links:

Twitter/KhaledTalib

www.khaledtalibthriller.com

Goodreads.

Amazon.co.uk

Amazon.com