‘Straw Man’ by Lindsey Mellon

Published by Northside House Ltd,
5 October 2024.
SBN: 978-1-91739307-2 (PB)

In Rome, Haydon Talbot MI6 Station Chief is woken by a phone call in the early hours of 12^th October 1984, by a panicky voice telling him of a bomb explosion in the Grand Hotel Brighton where the Prime Minister and her Cabinet are staying. He is recalled at once to London and arrives at the Head Quarters of SIS in Lambeth. He is met by his friend Mark Glasson, Director of Operations.

The I. R. A. has just claimed responsibility and Glasson tells him the bomb was in Margaret Thatcher’s bathroom and made of gelignite. She had a lucky escape.

The big concern is that the Provisional I. R. A. has linked up with Arab and Palestinian groups and Haydon had been sent to Rome where Libyan terrorists were known to be based in their Embassy. The worry is that the I. R. A. are suspected of planning to obtain Semtex from Libya.

Glasson instructs Haydon to send Lomax to Libya. Haydon is worried and tries to tell the Director, that Lomax is not ready, but he is adamant.

Meanwhile in Trieste I. R. A. member Sean Docherty meets with his friend Libyan, Nasirel-Maghrebi, and they discuss the supply of Semtex and heavy machine guns. Everything will be delivered by two fishing vessels to Ireland.

Plans are made to put Charlie Lomax (code name DAEDAUS), to work in top levels of the Libyan security establishment. Arrangements are also made for round the clock surveillance of Nasir and his people of the “Peoples Bureau” to identify and intercept the I. R. A. team linking with them.

So, begins a cat and mouse game between Libyan and British agents. Things do not go too well for Charlie, and Haydon rues the day he put him to work there.

Eventually the overriding concern becomes, how can the ships carrying Semtex to Ireland be stopped. Haydon is now put under even greater pressure. Can he prevent the inevitable carnage?

A really well written, knowledgeable account of opposing sides all convinced that theirs is the right path to follow leading to death and destruction on all sides. Who can trust whom?  No one is who they seem.

Highly recommended for readers fascinated by the intricate plots and counter plots that go on all over the world even today. 
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Reviewer: Tricia Chappell

Lindsey Mellon was born in London in 1949 and largely uneducated. He is passionate about history, travel and current affairs and has harboured an ambition for several decades to write fiction, but never quite got off the blocks. He completed a Faber ‘Work in Progress’ course, as part of which he developed the first draft of ‘Straw Man’, published by Northside House in February 2024. His second novel, a sequel - ‘The Sheikh’ - is set in Khartoum during the sinister infancy of Al-Qaeda during the early nineties and due for publication in March 2025. He is now at work on the third in the series ‘The Black Swamp’. Widely travelled, he has lived in the UK, Ireland, USA, Kenya, Sudan, Somalia, Italy, Spain and Switzerland. He has worked, among other things, as a pilot, an artist, an entrepreneur, an oil explorer and as a Producer in Film & TV. He lives and works in Oxfordshire.

Tricia Chappell. I have a great love of books and reading, especially crime and thrillers. I play the occasional game of golf (when I am not reading). My great love is cruising especially to far flung places, when there are long days at sea for plenty more reading! I am really enjoying reviewing books and have found lots of great new authors.