In the Evil Day by Peter Temple

Publisher's Synopsis

John Anselm is a former Beirut hostage, a war correspondent who went to one war too many. A burnt-out case, he lives in Hamburg, working for a semi-legal, near broke surveillance firm and trying to come to terms with his past.

Then into his life comes Con Niemand, an ex-mercenary and professional survivor. Niemand has had the unluckiest break of his life - he has stumbled across evidence of a terrible secret and now he's one the run, the focus of a relentless high-tech manhunt across England to the remote Welsh mountains.

Against his will, Anselm is plunged into a world of violence, betrayal and death. He must break out of his anaesthetised life and pit himself against forces that he does not understand, forces determined to rebury a secret that can destroy reputations and lives across the globe

My Review 

Con Niemand is a South African security agent who was working on a routine bodyguard assignment when his clients are attacked inside their own home. Niemand winds up as the only survivor out of the attack and, seeking a profit out of the experience, takes his client's briefcase, which was the attacker's ultimate target. Inside the briefcase he finds a large sum of cash and a video cassette.

It turns out that what Con Niemand has actually taken possession of is evidence of a terrible crime, a crime that powerful people will do anything to keep secret. He hops a flight to London intending to sell the evidence, but before he can, finds himself fleeing from a particularly well-organised and deadly pursuit.

Regular switches between Anselm's mental struggle in Hamburg and Niemand's physical struggle in England slowly draws the fates of the two men together. Somehow their lives are going to cross, but it remains unclear for much of the story exactly what form it will take. Gradually, piece after piece falls into place to reveal a cunning tale that is cleverly devised.

In the Evil Day is a complex thriller that manages to come to an extremely exciting conclusion. However, I found I was becoming frustrated by the circuitous route we took to get there. There are two distinct speeds at which the story unfolds. When focusing on John Anselm, things seem to grind to a near standstill. Anselm is still healing from a terrible ordeal, has lost chunks of his memory and suffers from panic attacks. All the while he is running an operation that is gathering secret information for powerful clients. The difficulty is trying to understand exactly how he, and his job, is going to fit in with the rest of the story.

On the other hand, following Niemand as he narrowly avoids his pursuers time and again, we barely have time to draw breath. Not surprisingly we end up knowing very little about him apart from the fact that he's relay good at surviving. The switches between Anselm and Niemand tended to make the make the story choppy which affected it's momentum.

Peter Temple tends to write with a spare style, sometimes assuming that that the reader already understands where he is taking the story. Unfortunately, I needed things spelled out a little more clearly and had to go over pages two and three times to try to understand exactly what was going on, particularly when dealing with Anselm. Once again, this had a big influence on the flow of the story as well as my enjoyment.

Part action thriller, part sensitive psychological melodrama, In the Evil Day delivers a dangerous manhunt that occasionally reaches manic proportions. It's a pity that a balance between characterisation and plot development could not be reached.