The Tsunami File: A Frank Delaney Thriller 3

From Jonas Smith, the fingerprint man, to Frank Delaney, journalist and part-time spy, the characters in this Michael Rose thriller emerge onto a world stage that stretches from the Tsunami-ravaged shores of sun-drenched Thailand to the grey snow of a German winter.Rose uses his background with Interpol to put together a complex plot that melds modern political drama with the historic intricacies of Cold War spying across the Berlin Wall – all in a setting where international teams work among giant containers housing rack upon rack of bodies not yet identified from among the more than 200,000 killed in the 2004 Tsunami.We start with Smith, the Scotland Yard consultant, on the face of it an unexciting, pernickety little man obsessed with the detail of his trade laboriously working his fingerprinting magic among the decomposing corpses. But it is Smith's obsessional attention to detail and refusal to give up on a corpse which defies identification that drives the plot of this book as we watch the fingerprint man emerge from his cocoon and face both changes in his personal life and a situation where he can no longer merely pass information up the chain for others to decide how it is used, but has to take action himself and face the consequences.As Delaney investigates the case with his hard-drinking journalist friend in Berlin a host of minor characters emerge, all complex in their own way, from the ageing former German Federal Criminal Police Chief and his attractive, hard-living undercover drug-squad niece to Smith's part-time Spanish lover Conchi and Becker, the bully who seems set on making Smith's life a misery.While there's plenty of action, in The Tsunami File you won't find the wham-bam-thank-you-mam action of a Matthew Riley Thriller. And it's central character Frank Delaney is nothing like Lee Child's Reacher, capable of knocking off bad guys with a swipe of each giant paw. Instead Rose's intricate characters are drawn from the real world – a world where people have flaws and insecurities rather than superhuman strength and improbable capabilities. They're people you can believe exist, people who have lives you can associate with. That's what makes this novel both believable and enjoyable.

Good read...

Another gripping episode in the life of Frank Delaney who travels to post-Tsunami Thailand where, in collaboration with his new friend Jonah Smith, a Scotland Yard fingerprint man, he unravels a mystery of identity and dark secrets.