Henry Porter - Author
Henry Porter has written for most national broadsheet newspapers. He was editor of the Atticus column on the Sunday Times, moving to set up the Sunday Correspondent magazine in 1988. He contributes commentary and reportage to the Guardian, Observer, Evening Standard and Sunday Telegraph. He is the British editor of the American magazine Vanity Fair and divides his time between New York and London.
CWA Ian Fleming Steel Dagger Finalist 2010. This first class thriller with its worryingly feasible storyline is gripping stuff. Published in 2009 the novel was set shortly after the 2012 Olympics and predicted a near future where civil liberties had been eroded; a surveillance state of ‘totalitarian technology’ where the British government colludes with big business to spy on its subjects. Just three years on from publication, Henry Porter’s ‘prophecies’ in The Dying Light have now come to pass with terrifying accuracy. As well as being “one of the masters of the genre” (DAILY TELEGRAPH) Henry is a writer and journalist specialising in liberty and civil rights, and has been contributing to the GUARDIAN coverage of the NSA and GCHQ surveillance revelations of 2013. Click here to see his "Opinion Pieces" in the Guardian. Comparison: Gerald Seymour, Robert Wilson, Alan Furst. CWA Judges’ comments: 'Alarming political thriller with a powerful message: our freedom and personal integrity are at risk.'
CWA Ian Fleming Steel Dagger Finalist 2010. A chilling tale of what Britain could so easily become – a police state with stifling surveillances able to manipulate anyone. This raises the question of how far the state should interfere with our private lives in the name of security. David Eyam has found a way to stop the rot and a dramatic plot unfolds. Well written and worryingly feasible, this is gripping stuff. First class. Comparison: Gerald Seymour, Robert Wilson, Alan Furst. CWA Judges’ comments: 'Alarming political thriller with a powerful message: our freedom and personal integrity are at risk.'
There are very few people writing in this traditional spy novel genre, and even fewer as good as this man. This is his fourth novel, a tale of nerve and intelligence set as the Berlin Wall is torn down. This title is also available as an Audiobook in CD format.Comparison: Robert Harris, John Le Carré, Gerald Seymour. Similar this month: Terence Strong, Douglas Reeman.
'A welcome return ... Firefly seems ripped from the headlines and is both timely and terrific' Mick Herron 'The eagerly awaited return of an espionage master' Charles Cumming From the refugee camps of Greece to the mountains of Macedonia, a thirteen year old boy is making his way to Germany and safety. Codenamed 'Firefly', he holds vital intelligence: unparalleled insight into a vicious ISIS terror cell, and details of their plans. But the terrorists are hot on his trail, determined he won't live to pass on the information. When MI6 become aware of Firefly and what he knows, the race is on to find him. Paul Samson, ex-MI6 agent and now private eye, finds himself recruited to the cause. Fluent in Arabic thanks to his Lebanese heritage, Samson's job is to find Firefly, win his trust and get him to safety. A devastatingly timely thriller following the refugee trail from Syria to Europe, Firefly is a sophisticated, breathtaking race against time from the acclaimed and award-winning author of Brandenburg and The Dying Light.
'A welcome return ... Firefly seems ripped from the headlines and is both timely and terrific' Mick Herron 'The eagerly awaited return of an espionage master' Charles Cumming 'British espionage fiction is the best in the world, and Porter is part of the reason why' Lee Child From the refugee camps of Greece to the mountains of Macedonia, a thirteen year old boy is making his way to Germany and safety. Codenamed 'Firefly', he holds vital intelligence: unparalleled insight into a vicious ISIS terror cell, and details of their plans. But the terrorists are hot on his trail, determined he won't live to pass on the information. When MI6 become aware of Firefly and what he knows, the race is on to find him. Paul Samson, ex-MI6 agent and now private eye, finds himself recruited to the cause. Fluent in Arabic thanks to his Lebanese heritage, Samson's job is to find Firefly, win his trust and get him to safety. A devastatingly timely thriller following the refugee trail from Syria to Europe, Firefly is a sophisticated, breathtaking race against time from the acclaimed and award-winning author of Brandenburg and The Dying Light.
An ex British spy finds himself dragged back into the world of espionage after a mysterious plane crash...Robert Cope Harland ended his career as a British spy in an Austrian hospital, after being tortured and beaten by Czech security agents in the last days of the communist regime. He was young enough then to find a new life with the Red Cross and then with the UN. Twelve years later his UN plane crashes in mysterious circumstances at La Guardia airport, New York and Harland is the only survivor. Was it sabotage, and if so, was Harland the target? It is soon clear to Harland that the answers are to be found in his past, a past which, along with its secrets and tradecraft, he has desperately tried to forget. And now the crash has thrown him back into a world of relentless intrigue and mistrust, to his youth, and a life-changing love affair...
Suppose you could detonate a bomb anywhere in the world, just by making a telephone call...?Constantine Lindow is waiting for his brother Eamonn outside a central London tube station when a bus turns into the street and explodes. The next day Con is arrested as the prime suspect for the bombing. Con is determined to prove his innocence, but the only way he can do that is to find the real bomber. As he digs deeper, he finds himself confronted by his own brother's secret life - and the cold-blooded killers from his past.The trail leads Lindow halfway across the world and back to London, where he tracks down a killer with a genius for encryption codes. Only Lindow can crack the code. Only Lindow can stop that telephone ringing...
November 1989. The fall of the Berlin Wall. One man is caught between East and West...The Stasi was among the most sophisticated intelligence organisations in the world, but by the end of the 1980s the Orwellian state of East Germany was collapsing around it. The special squads of armed officers, the torture chambers in the Stasi jail, the hundreds of thousands of informers could do nothing to prevent the rebellion that saw the fall of the Berlin Wall.It is in the context of these last few paranoid weeks of the Communist world, when a population that had been oppressed for nearly sixty years found the will to rise up, that this outstanding thriller is set. Its hero is Dr Rudolf Rosenharte, an academic from Dresden and agent for MI6; his controller is Robert Harland, from A SPY'S LIFE and EMPIRE STATE.When Rosenharte's security is compromised he is faced with a stark choice: to defect to the West, leaving his beloved family to the mercies of the Stasi, or return to East Germany to carry out a dangerous assignment under the Stasi's suspicious eye...
CWA Ian Fleming Steel Dagger Finalist 2010. This first class thriller with its worryingly feasible storyline is gripping stuff. Published in 2009 the novel was set shortly after the 2012 Olympics and predicted a near future where civil liberties had been eroded; a surveillance state of ‘totalitarian technology’ where the British government colludes with big business to spy on its subjects. Just three years on from publication, Henry Porter’s ‘prophecies’ in The Dying Light have now come to pass with terrifying accuracy. As well as being “one of the masters of the genre” (DAILY TELEGRAPH) Henry is a writer and journalist specialising in liberty and civil rights, and has been contributing to the GUARDIAN coverage of the NSA and GCHQ surveillance revelations of 2013. Click here to see his "Opinion Pieces" in the Guardian. Comparison: Gerald Seymour, Robert Wilson, Alan Furst. CWA Judges’ comments: 'Alarming political thriller with a powerful message: our freedom and personal integrity are at risk.'
A SPY'S LIFE's hero Robert Harland returns in a terrifying post 9/11 thriller.The head of the US National Security Agency is assassinated in a spectacular set piece killing at Heathrow...An airport employee and his family are found murdered in their council house in Uxbridge...In New York, a fashionable Upper East Side osteopath receives two postcards showing the Empire State Building...A group of migrant workers are brutally gunned down in Macedonia...The quest to find the link between these apparently random events is pursued by Robert Harland - drawn back to a world he thought he'd left behind - with a dual role for the UN and MI6.
