Disengaged

I’ve got to say that Disengaged is what I felt after reading this rather strange thriller. It’s not a bad book by a long chalk – just, well, rather remote.

Julian Fisher and his mate Rami Haddad run a software company called Hadfish. They’ve got some keen young programmers on board, but they’re not flush with business. Then Rami wants them to take on a mysterious job where the money is good, instructions are sparse and cryptic, and where the possible outcome of drones sits unhappily with Julian’s conscience.

And he still has one, although it’s years since, as a keen young student, he passed secrets to the Russians. That’s going to return to haunt him.

Mischa Hiller has seemingly thrown everybody bar the Argentineans and the Israelis into the mix in Disengaged – we’ve got Russians, Iranians, Afghans and sundry eastern Europeans, plus a rather obvious bit of misdirection.

The book has a low-key feel to it and never really hits its stride. That’s not to say that all thrillers should fit the ’45 minutes to save the universe’ formula, but they do need to motor along. Disengaged at times feels like a learner driver (although Hiller is not a debut novelist) who hasn’t quite got control of the clutch.

The characters aren’t as fully-rounded as they might be, and it’s difficult to feel very much for any of them. Julian’s a hypochondriac, his girlfriend Sheila is rather dull, Rami’s sleazy and his new girlfriend is a cliché! Boris the Russian could have lumbered out of 1980s British TV central casting – I fully expected Bodie and Doyle from The Professionals to come screeching around a corner in a Ford Capri and bundle him off for Gordon Jackson to shout at in a basement!

Disengaged is good enough to keep a reader occupied over a quiet weekend, mainly due to the techie angle of the plot. And there’s one intriguing character – that of Mojgan, the mystery woman with a mission on her hands. She’d have made a stronger lead than the blokes …