Confessor

by John Gardner

Overview

When Gus Keene, one of the best interrogation artists or confessors the British Secret Intelligence Service has ever known, is blown to bits in a car explosion, the service calls his friend and former associate Big Herbie Kruger out of retirement to investigate. As Kruger delves into his friend's past and the black arts of a confessor, he discovers a strange fact--the victim was not only a master at uncovering the truth, but of concealing it as well.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780446603324
Publisher:	Grand Central Publishing
Publication date:	11/01/1996
Series:	A Herbie Kruger Novel
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	416
Product dimensions:	5.38(w) x 9.25(h) x (d)

About the Author

Before coming an author of fiction in he early 1960's John Gardner was variously a stage magician, a Royal Marine officer and a journalist. In all Gardner has fifty-four novels to his credit, including a series of highly acclaimed comic novels featuring a cowardly secret agent called Boysie Oakes. He was also invited by Ian Fleming's literary copyright holders to write a series of continuation James Bond novels, which proved to be so successful that instead of the contracted three books he went on to publish some fourteen titles. Having lived in the Republic of Ireland, the United States and the UK, John Gardner sadly died in August of 2007 having just completed his third novel in the Moriarty trilogy. Moriarty, was published here in the UK by Quercus and in the US by Harcourt in November 2008.

What People are Saying About This

Len Deighton

A master storyteller.

Editorial Reviews

In this second volume in Gardner's Last Kruger trilogy, Big Herbie Kruger-hero of an earlier trilogy-is called out of retirement to investigate the car-bomb assassination of Gus Keene, one of the most successful inquisitors (``confessors'') ever to serve Her Majesty's spies. Herbie's old ties to Keene put his life in jeopardy as he uncovers sinister terrorists bombing European and American sites as a prelude to a scheme known only as ``Magic Lightning.'' Herbie also learns that Keene had a second life as a world-class magician, and that he kept some of his spycraft very secret indeed; it's even possible that the master illusionist is still alive. Though Gardner provides the requisite treacheries and betrayals, a slow start and the often murky explanations of characters' complex relationships may deter some readers. In addition, while Kruger, with his mangled vocabulary and bulldoggedness, is affectionately drawn, supporting players rarely come to life. Still, readers who persevere will be rewarded when the plot's many dark secrets are finally revealed-appropriately enough, at a magician's conference in a besieged Washington, D.C. Author tour. (Apr.)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

In intelligence jargon, a "confessor" is a specialist in breaking down suspected spies, informants, and defectors through relentless interrogation. Gus Keene was one of the best of the confessors in the business until terrorists blew up his car on a quiet rural road in the middle of the night. Gus' old friend Herbie Kruger has been called back from the alcoholic haze of his retirement to try to find out who killed Gus and why. Meanwhile, teams of Iraqi terrorists are making life hell in New York, Washington, London, and Paris. Using Gus' unfinished memoirs, Herbie discovers a connection between the Iraqis and a tiny splinter group of the IRA, a group Gus had nearly destroyed by using a clever bit of legerdemain to cover up a botched police raid. Gardner has an established audience, so his latest is certain to be popular, but like much of his work, it exhibits both the strengths and the weaknesses of the espionage novel at its lowest common denominator: plenty of suspense; an overabundance of gore and mayhem; and the demotion of all women characters to the roles of either sex toys or victims. Buy as demand dictates.

George Needham