cover image Remembrance Day

Remembrance Day

Henry Porter. Simon & Schuster, $25 (368pp) ISBN 978-0-684-86549-2

Explanations of British law enforcement politics and high-tech sleuthing undermine the tension in Porter's first novel; in fact, the U.K. Vanity Fair editor is often forced to stop the action to summarize the plot. Research microbiologist Constantine Lindow is nearly killed by a bus bomb presumably set by some faction of the IRA to explode on a busy London street. Con's brother is killed in the blast, but even so, Con is arrested, mostly because he's an Irish national freshly arrived from Boston. The chief investigator, Commander Kenneth Foyle, doesn't think Lindow is involved and releases him, but he is quickly removed from the case for letting a prime suspect go. After a number of internal power struggles among various agencies, Lindow travels to Ireland to bury his brother, then back to New England where he is joined by gorgeous double agent Mary Menihan, whom he immediately beds. He then heads off with her to the Maine woods to locate the terrorist-assassins' lair. That accomplished, Lindow returns to England, where Foyle reenters the story and assumes the protagonist's role for a while. The villain is eventually tracked down, but what his ultimate target will be remains a mystery. The intrepid Lindow and his beautiful spy-consort reappear, and between bouts of steamy lovemaking and coffee and pastry, manage to bring the story to a flat conclusion. Although the narrative is hamstrung by coincidence and implausibility, burdened by redundancy and long speeches and weighed down by superfluous characters, the love scenes are sexy and the action scenes, while brief, provide what the rest of the book doesn't: thrills. (May)