Broken English

Guy Parkinson was a graduate student in philosophy at the University of Toronto.

Broken English, author David Thompson’s first novel, is set amid the political violence of modern Ireland. Essentially an action thriller in the genre of Forsythe and Ludlum, the story follows the efforts of ex-IRA assassin Martin Burke first to uncover, then to thwart, a plot to assassinate Charles, Prince of Wales.

The plot centres on the occasion of the imminent visit of Prince Charles to the site of Lord Mountbatten’s slaying in 1979. There is evidence of a planned assassination; Burke must merely find out who is behind it and prevent it — both because of the dire repercussions of such an event for Ireland, and because Burke himself would be the principal suspect. The plot is kept thick (though early revealed) by untraceable American arms shipments, fanatical British soldiers, a fey Catholic Belfast youth, and, of course, the romantic interest.

The book is a creditable effort (it is, after all, a first novel) at the genre and does what it should: it keeps the reader turning pages, and maintains interest with only a few dull moments. The book’s ability to hold our interest is certainly aided by the fact that it is quite short — something uncharacteristic in a genre that thrives on books of numbing length.

Another aid to the book’s interest is the topicality of its setting. Thompson is rather heavy-handed with this aspect of the work: the oblique and rather shallow study presented in the book of life amid the intense politics and daily violence of Belfast is the story’s greatest asset, but it is too much offset by the portrayal of the Irish as long-suffering heroes and the English as brutal, arrogant intruders (with very few exceptions).

Finally, Broken English does not much depart from the thematic norm of the action genre: there are scoundrels who use violence to have their way, and violence must sometimes be used to see oneself justly defended from them; and then there are men like Martin Burke: sensitive, just, and intelligent, weary of senseless violence, but still comfortable with a machine gun in hand. The suggestion of condemnation of violence is always disappointing in this type of novel, because it so clearly relies on the use of violence to make the story a good read.