Product Description

Have you ever considered what it must be like when you're being targeted for what you know, by people who want you silenced, permanently? Have you ever considered the problem you face when you don't know what it is that they think you know, and in fact you don't even know who they are?

And if you discover the truth in time, what happens when the consequences of revealing it are worse than the consequences of silence?

David Beckett is a fashion photographer with simple needs: worldwide recognition and everlasting fame. He is about to achieve this dream with his plan to create a controversial photo gallery, the Galerie du Nu, in Paris with his friend and mentor Philippe Desjardins. However his dream is rudely shattered when terrorists detonate a massive dirty bomb in Paris, killing thousands of people.

France is in the process of brokering a Palestinian Protectorate Plan that would set Palestine as a separate state, managed by a pan-European Mandate. There is a great deal of resistance to this plan, not least from Arab groups who do not want to see peace in the region unless Israel itself is destroyed and, according to American intelligence analysts, it seems likely that it is one of these groups that carried out the bombings.

Philippe is among the dead but his widow, Lucienne, and newspaper boss Jerome Dykstra believe that Phillipe was murdered, and his death hidden among the many with no chance of being investigated. The authorities are too busy with the aftermath of the bombings to worry about a single incongruous death.

Jerome attempts to persuade David to investigate Phillipe's murder, which he believes may have been committed by opponents of the Galerie, but David refuses to become involved in a police matter. His friendship with Lucienne comes under severe strain, and his wealthy, over-bearing girlfriend, Sam Iles, takes Lucienne's side. Lucienne has the power to destroy David's grand designs and, when she threatens his entire reason for living he has no choice but to agree to investigate.

Jerome teams David up with Bob Merrick, an American private investigator. Within a day, David is convinced they can investigate no further, but Bob has other ideas and pushes David into continuing at a tangent. This tangent leads them straight to danger and, almost before he's aware of it, David is running from an unseen enemy as his relationships and prejudices begin to collapse around him.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1624155 in Books
• Published on: 2004-08-25
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 415 pages

From the Inside Flap
'How did such large quantities of explosives, chemical and biological agents get into Europe so easily?'

Rushing to Paris, a city paralysed by an appalling terrorist attack that has left tens of thousands dead, fashion photographer David Beckett seeks information about the fate of his friend and business partner.

Together with ex-patriate American detective Robert Merrick, David is propelled into an investigation that takes him through Europe to the troubled Middle East.

Caught up in the mother of all conspiracy theories, he is pushed into a deadly race between the authorities, the terrorists and undercover agents.
David must somehow uncover the truth before he is killed to ensure his silence.

About the Author
Richard Faith worked in the defence sector for many years, until it revealed itself to be the 'attack sector'. Finding no solace in the equally unethical and mercenary aims of commerce he decided to return to writing. He believes that fiction is the closest thing to the truth that we have left.

Excerpted from Immoral Consensus by Richard Faith. Copyright © 2004. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Silence. Ramallah would have been under curfew for a few hours by now. Tired. Thoughts in fragments. An early start, a hot day, lots of changes and activity, lots of hard thinking. Revelation.

The change from desperate existence to a form of normality over the space of sixty kilometres was a shock to the system. I could taste the desperation of those held in that prison beyond Jerusalem, their tears of frustration in the face of unknowing indifference, their cries never to be heard. An entire country living in that white space beyond grief. It hurt me that I hadn’t known and, not knowing, hadn’t cared.

Emotional, almost tearful in the face of so much that was wrong, I showered instead, emerging fresher and more content.

Sleep was close, but the minibar was closer. I popped open a bottle of Heineken, taking a gulp straight from it, setting it onto the table beside the curtains before pushing the heavy fabric aside. The hotel staff had kept the curtains closed throughout the day to prevent the south-facing rooms becoming excessively hot. Even so, the air was oppressive and heavy, and there was no comfort here. If I ever hoped to sleep, I had to open the doors and change the air, or change everything.

Fiddling briefly with the latch, I pushed aside the glazed door and stepped out onto the balcony. Loud music, a tinkling melody lost in a martial beat, sounded from beyond the marina, somewhere along ‘the strip’, the coastal stretch of hotels southwards along the Mediterranean shore. The sea, to the right, crawled dark and brooding on the shore.

Small phosphorescent waves broke silently suicidal against the rocks of the breakwaters, dark and silent and solid beside the brash car-horn ephemera, the stuff of cities by night.

A small circular table and two low foldaway chairs stood out lonely in the darkness, the chairs’ white webbing visible against the darker concrete of the balcony. Above the music, the scrape of the metal feet on the concrete sounded loudly in the night. Elsewhere there was a similar sound and, curious, I looked out over the ledge.

Beneath me, the gardens were lit. Occasionally the shadow of someone walking past a light would sweep across the coarse grass like radar. Bob’s room was adjacent and, gripping the rail, I craned as far outwards as I dared. No light shone on the wall of Bob’s balcony. He was either soundly asleep, or in agony, or out there in the lights somewhere. Suddenly the injustices of the place crowded in on me again.

A week ago, I had no idea I’d be here, no inkling I would see what I have seen. So much has changed. What do I do, now that I know? There’s no way I can un-know again.

I couldn’t go back.

The same way that Karen couldn’t go back.

All that remained was the night.

I reached between the curtains and retrieved the beer, slumping into a chair to take thoughtful sips in the darkness.

Ahead of me, the lights of cars streamed and blinked their way along the seared artery of Hayarkon Street, a blazing gash of light between the dark, necrotic rooftops. Further inland, to the left, the streak of Dizengoff also blazed.

The loud music came from a beach party. Some distance away the torches around a small set of tents flickered as people passed back and forth in the darkness. Sixty kilometres away soldiers enforced a curfew. The music maintained a relentless thump-thump-thump as the people partied in a desperate pastiche of European clubland, dancing beside the dark abyss of the sea.

When I awoke cold at 4 a.m., they were gone.