Review | Knife Edge by Simon Mayo

Perfect mini-series material. 4/5 stars.

Thank you to Random House UK for providing me with an e-copy of this book via NetGalley.

The blurb:

You never know where danger may come from…

6.45am. A sweltering London rush hour. And in the last 27 minutes, seven people have been murdered.

In a series of coordinated attacks, seven men and women across London have been targeted. For journalist Famie Madden, the horror unfolds as she arrives for the morning shift.

The victims have one thing in common: they make up the investigations team at the news agency where Famie works. The question everyone’s asking: what were they working on that could prompt such brutal devastation?

As Famie starts to receive mysterious messages, she must find out whether she is being warned of the next attack, or being told that she will be the next victim…

My take:

Knife Edge has a great premise for a contemporary political thriller. The protagonist arrives at work one morning to find that 7 of her colleagues have been murdered and no-one in the office knows why or whether they’ll also be targetted. In fact, one of the tensest scenes in the book is early on when the main character – Famie – and two of her colleagues are using London public transport to get home and don’t know whether anyone/everyone around them might be planning to kill them.

This tension is maintained for a large part of the book using short chapters and regular shifts between the two main narrative threads which are set in London and Coventry. I did feel some sections in the middle of the book dragged a little and I found my interest waning. However, these are short lapses in pace and may even be designed to give the reader a break!

Famie is a relatable main character, even if she is rather prickly and could probably do with scaling back her alcohol consumption (although she’s under insane amounts of stress for the entire story, so I guess we should give her a break!). She’s smart, brave and determined, but thankfully she’s also not daft enough to take ludicrous risks with her own or her daughter’s life and makes sensible decisions when it really matters.

The climax of the story – which takes place at a well-known Coventry landmark – is terrific. As someone who lives down the road from Cov, I was pleased to see a thriller take a step outside London. I don’t want to say anything else related to the plot because what the heck is actually going on is revealed slowly and carefully and there is plenty to spoil through careless talk.

Overall: Knife Edge is ideal escapist, thriller fiction. An engrossing, easy-to-read, topical thriller.