The Hireling, the first novel by Neil Kelly, is a fictionalised account of a small, bit-player in the greater game. He moves in the background, preparing the ground for the outrages that will be blamed on Islamic fanatics. He is an odd job man, a general-purpose henchman, working for a shady security consultancy. He goes where he is told to go and does what he is told to do. Even when he is sent on the most ludicrous and vicious assignments, to seemingly nonsensical ends, the same rule always applies. No questions asked. But when he is ordered to liquidate a young, supposedly radicalised, Muslim lately returned from Pakistan, things turn very dirty indeed.
The story presents alternative versions of recent events:
�The weapons expert who slashed his wrist, but died of a heart attack before he could bleed very much.
�The former foreign secretary who died of a heart attack after harshly criticising the government, but whose broken neck was never really explained.
�The former Northern Ireland secretary, also an outspoken critic, who finally succumbed to cancer by way of a fatal blow to the head.
�Just what was George W. Bush waiting for, hunkered down on his Texas ranch twiddling his thumbs, in the months between taking office and 9/11
�If security experts are so sure that a government agency was behind 9/11 - and nobody any longer believes it was Iraq - then whose government was it
�Why would a gang of radicalised Moslems blow themselves up in London's transport system when there were so many better targets
About the author
Neil Kelly is a former soldier, having served with infantry in the former West Germany and for three years in the Middle East with Army Intelligence. This is his first novel.