What might have helped though, would have been a central character with enough charisma or complexity to let the reader overlook the inherent implausibility of the villainous conspiracy. A novel so pedestrian, trite and unintentionally funny that it reads better as a satire on the genre than as genuine thriller. Sent into the steaming Colombian jungle to investigate the murder of a British intelligence officer, Luke finds himself caught up in the coils of a plot that has terrifying international dimensions. Books majoring on the subtleties of spycraft rather than militaristic posturing are rather thin on the ground and Gardner might have made better use of his knowledge and connections to produce something more original and thoughtful, instead of just going for the easy buck with yet another movie-friendly actioneer. This effects the pace of the plot as well as character development and due to the underdeveloped characters and character relationships I didn't really feel connected to any of them throughout.

When asking readers to suspend their disbelief, the author shouldn’t then ask them to suspend even more disbelief, especially so early in the plot. Crisis is the first non-fiction work by Frank Gardner, and as befits his day job of BBC Security Correspondent he has chosen a spy thriller as the genre for his debut novel.Picked this off the library shelf because Frank Gardner is an engaging, dynamic, original and succinct BBC correspondent. Luke Carlton is the protagonist, an ex-Special Forces officer who has gone to work for MI6, Britain’s foreign intelligence gathering service. I didn’t find many of the characters to be overdrawn or caricature-like, which in itself was refreshing. The final section does ramp up the tension, although the stakes are set too high for you to ever really believe that the bad guys will succeed in their goals, but it far too much of a slog to get to that point. In his quest for authenticity the author neglected to make the characters believable as actual human beings which makes it difficult to care about the outcome.

He has, in addition, used his considerable knowledge of security – being the BBC’s Security Correspondent – to produce a great, page-turning debut novel. Honestly, if she had said ‘Babes’ one more time in a way that no real woman outside of The Only Way Is Essex actually would I would have screamed. Oh, and I HATED how the girlfriend had been written - whiney Sloane Ranger one minute; kick-arse, kidnap escaping martial expert the next. The action swings back and forth between London and Colombia as the story moves to a thrilling climax. I haven't had that type of setting connection before when reading a novel, coming from New Zealand I haven't read many books which are set in New Zealand.This is a literary territory rather overpopulated at the moment, with swaggering 21st century pseudo-Bonds crawling out of the woodwork everywhere. Awarded an OBE in 2005 for services to journalism, Frank Gardner was profiled in the BBC's television series, Who Do You Think You Are? The writing style has a very solid British spy/espionage feel to it and more than a few times throughout the full-length novel I was reminded of a Bond sort of storyline or feel to the atmosphere.

We got to learn a bit about his line of work being a secret agent for the London MI5, we learnt a bit about his younger years when he grew up in Colombia (the other half to the novels setting), but mostly we got to learn about his lovely girlfriend Elise and their budding relationship which was slightly hindered due to his line of work. The pace never lets up from the narcotics dens of Colombia, the murder of a serving MI6 officer in the same country, the torture, deceit, and corruption of the drugs gangs, though to a kidnapping in London and the machinations of the security services as they prepare for the worst.

For those of you who do not know, Frank was severely wounded in an Al Qaeda attack in Yemen in 2004 – his cameraman was killed, and he was left for dead with eleven bullets in him. The central plot of the book is a critical problem from the get go because it fits so poorly with the tone of the book. The US, and particularly the UK, have been interfering with his narcotics business for far too long, and it has cost him too much money to carry on doing nothing about it. I will be giving the next thrilling installment of Luke "Babes" Carlton's adventures a very wide berth indeed.