Robert Peston - The Whistleblower

 

Rating: 4/5

 

Review:

A slow start but a decent thriller 

 

The Whistleblower is, in the end, quite a good political thriller. Journalists don’t always make good novelists, but Robert Peston has made a decent fist of this, his first work of fiction.

Set just before the 1997 General Election, the book is narrated by Gilbert Peck, political editor for a major national broadsheet. The death of someone close to him leads to suggestions of some major skulduggery at the top of government which Peck begins to investigate. The book is peopled with some very thinly disguised characters of the time; a charismatic leader of “Modern Labour” with a high-profile spin doctor and a southern-hemisphere newspaper magnate who is trying to move into TV...and so on. This works quite well, although I found the large number of dodgy PR people, MPs, journalists, political advisors and so on rather hard to keep track of some of the time.

I have to say that I found the first 100 pages or so pretty hard going in places. It is a long time before any plot really begins to emerge, with lots and lots of background but not much development. Peston is obviously very familiar with the relationship between politicians and journalists and with the official systems and much less official contacts which exist. It is interesting, but it does read a little like a beginner’s guide to the political lobby system at times (with some fairly extensive instruction on Jewish funerals thrown in for good measure). Add to this an immoral, untrustworthy, self-centred, drug-and-alcohol-fuelled protagonist whom people frequently and justifiably liken to the exit from the human digestive tract and it was a bit of a struggle at times.

However, the book does pick up when things actually begin to happen and I became quite involved in the plot. The well painted background did actually become background rather than a seminar on How Things Work, and was all the better for it. There were some rather unlikely events but I could forgive them, and the way in which the powerful protect themselves, each other and their institutions was very well and rather horrifyingly illustrated.

Overall, I found this an interesting and ultimately exciting political thriller. It’s not a classic, but it’s a good start and I will certainly give Robert Peston’s next book a try.

(My thanks to Bonnier for an ARC via NetGalley.)