"The Colour of Blood" by Brian Moore

On the very first page there is an assassination attempt on the Cardinal of a communist-controlled Eastern European country. Narrated from the Cardinal's viewpoint, the reader follows the Cardinal as he is arrested and escapes. But who has arrested him? And who is trying to kill him? And why? And why now? And what has this to do with the proposals from some of his priests that the church should be organising protests against the regime.

A brilliant, fast-paced thriller deep in Graham Greene and Hitchcock if not Kafka territory.

Selected quotes:

• "The chickens, pecking dementedly, darted this way and that with worried, nervous looks." (p 31)
• "The sun rose in the sky behind a gauzy morning mist." (p 32)
• "The Colonel did not finish the sentence but, instead, drew on his cigarette and expelled smoke in a burst as though he were miming an explosion." (p 38)
• "A wish granted is a wish destroyed." (p 107)
• "I am alone now: not hidden but hiding." (p 107)
• "The truck driver's head and shoulders were silhouetted suddenly in the theatre of the opened truck doorway." (p 119)

Wonderful from start to finish. Shortlisted for the Booker Prize, 1987.

July 2017; 191 pages

This review was written by the author of Motherdarling  and The Kids of God