Whenever I want to treat myself to a grounded, low-key and timely espionage thriller with a dash of action, I look to Stephen Leather’s books. To that end, Broken Promises is every bit the perfect Stephen Leather thriller, and one of his very best to date.
When masked gunmen open fire in London’s Chinatown, chanting cries for sovereignty of Taiwan, all hell breaks loose. It’s a political nightmare and the pieces don’t fit as nicely with the evidence on hand. In comes Dan “The Spider” Shepherd, a career MI5 officer who has dealt with many a nuisance. Dan’s investigation soon leads him to a billionaire tech visionary who has developed an AI system that can shape public opinion, manipulate markets and influence political decision-making. With battle lines being drawn that could have serious repercussions for the whole world, Dan Shepherd must go undercover and take the fight to the elusive mastermind before the first missile is launched.
One of the best things about Stephen Leather’s books is that he does not shy away from tackling varying subject matters straight out of the news headlines. In Broken Promises, he explores Artificial Intelligence through the lens of a digital layman, helping readers get acquainted with AI and all of its latest advancements. As Dan Shepherd must go undercover convincingly as someone with the basic know-how of AI, we get some quick refresher along with the badass hero.
At the core of it, Broken Promises is very much an excellent espionage thriller that feels like a much more grounded, less flashy version of James Bond from the perspective of a veteran who is more inclined to use his brawn than brain to uncover the sinister plot of the antagonist but ultimately takes the gloves off to fight dirty in an action-packed finale in a vast Scottish castle. Leather adds the right amount of tactical details regarding weaponry and technical insights on undercover work through application on his protagonist in a very nice, uniform flow of storytelling.
Broken Promises is a bona-fide and intense thriller that dreams big and hits its high mark of entertaining while simultaneously scaring you with the eerie ways technology can be manipulated today to bring the world to the brink of chaos. Stephen Leather nails it again!
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