Empire State - Hardcover

Henry Porter

3.88

657 ratings by Goodreads

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0752856839 ISBN 13: 9780752856834

Publisher: Orion Publishing, 2003

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The head of the US National Security Agency is assassinated in a spectactular set-piece killing at Heathrow. A Pakistani employee at the airport and his family are found murdered in their council house in Uxbridge. In New York, a fashionable Upper East Side osteopath, who's treating Robert Harland, receives two postcards of the Empire State Building from someone called Karim Khan, one posted in Turkey, the other Iran. A group of migrant workers, including Khan, en route from Afghanistan to the EU, is brutally gunned down in Macedonia. Khan escapes death, but is captured to endure worse - terrible torture. The quest to find the link between these apparently random events is pursued by Harland, with the help of Isis Hernick, a young female officer of MI6, in a remarkable thriller that explores our frightening post 9/11 world. It is a world that inspires paranoia on a grand scale, where international agencies give no quarter and show no scruple in hunting down supposed terrorists, and where torture is used by democratic societies who cite defence as the justification for their acts.

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About the Author:

Henry Porter has written for most national broadsheet newspapers. He was editor of the Atticus column on the Sunday Times, moving to set up the Sunday Correspondent magazine in 1988. He contributes commentary and reportage to the Guardian, Observer, Evening Standard and Sunday Telegraph. He is the British editor of Vanity Fair, and lives in London with his wife and two daughters.

Review:

REVIEWS '...a powerful, propulsive piece of thriller writing... Porter has consolidated his reputation for writing some of the best espionage thrillers around.' THE OBSERVER 7/9/03 'his landscapes, language and action are intriguing. Here is a spy writer whose work is becoming increasingly unbeatable.' Bill Greenwell, THE INDEPENDENT 13/9/03 'Like the best espionage writers, Porter is an expert at spinning plates. We are flashed all over the world.' William Leith, DAILY TELEGRAPH 13/9/03 'Porter is certainly filling the gap left by Len Deighton and John Le Carre...' EVENING STANDARD '... a tour-de-force, which is stunning in its execution and masterful in its attention to detail... The future of the spy novel is in safe hands. The man writes like a dream. Challenging, ambitious, thoughtful, authoritative, he's a le Carre for this century.' GLASGOW HERALD "A revelation and the best book of the year by far." THE HERALD (GLASGOW) '...demonstrates a vast knowledge of security systems and a deep appreciation of the changing state of world safety.' www tangledweb.co.uk 'Buttock-clenching suspense as secret agent Robert Harland returns to sniff out some murky political goings on.' TATLER 01-10-2003 'This is a gift from one of the key espionage writers of the 21st century' GOOD BOOK GUIDE 01-10-03 'Henry Porter is the writer of espionage thriller for the new millenium. In his new, remarkably timely novel, Empire State, porter once again proves he is at the cuting edge of international political espionage' EYE SPY October 2003 'Empire State is tightly written, well-paced and cleverly constructed. The backgrounds are well done, be they seedy Islamic bookshops on Westbourne Grove or Cairene cafes, and the action sequences are all that they should be. Porter definitely knows what he's doing and he does it very well. More, please' THE SPECTATOR, 25-10-03 'Empire State is plausible, scary and exciting with unstressed know-how and espionage tatics that sound authentic ... In more ways than one, Porter's excellent novel extends our education' LITERARY REVIEW, 01-10-03

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