Synopsis "The Organisation: Part of the Book of the Law"
THE Organisation aka 'The Office' is a highly secretive, unavowed intelligence and security service, answerable only to its head of operations. For hundreds of years, it has quietly but ruthlessly protected the interests of the Powers-That-Be. Into this shadowy but supremely middle-class world steps Damien Dean, late twentysomething hard-drinking ex-journo from the unfashionable faded industrial town of Ironopolis - to avoid a prison sentence for computer hacking. His working-class-made-good background, his love of football and concern for the truth mark him out as not 'One of Us' in The Organisation. Adding to Damien's problems is Dolores Kane, his fiery and mysterious 'One That Got Away' who has returned to his life secretly dead set on revenge for his treatment of her at university. Then, one drunken week in September 1994, there are a series of apparently unrelated murders. They have only one obvious thing in common: Damien Dean is always there or thereabouts and dead drunk when they happen. Just as he quietly establishes it may be the work of a serial killer, he is assigned to Operation PANGOLIN, the investigation into Francis Elwell, Defence Minister and suspected Soviet sleeper or 'illegal', as it is known in the Trade. But as Damien follows up the leads in both investigations, he realises they are connected by more than just his presence. But is the Organisation trying to frame him for the murders? Or is his ex-girlfriend Dolores trying to frame him? Or worse still, is she herself responsible? Or even Damien himself? Set principally against the backdrop of mid-1990s London with its shifting attitudes to gender and sexuality, the narrative explores the changing nature of the personal and political in the post-industrial, post-Thatcher, post-Sov Bloc world, and how these play out against the eternal themes of love, justice and redemption. The novel is written in the framework of a conventional, 'page-turner' thriller with all its shocks, twists and red herrings but seeks to avoid the cliches of this genre through: the highly personalised voice of the first person narrator. the complex backstories of the characters which are explored in flashback through the narrator's eyes. the use of the present historic to recount significant or cliffhanger moments in the plot. Damien Dean is a highly fallible hero who gives the book a comic dimension through his wayward exploits and his satirical commentary on the work of the intelligence services. More Harry Palmer or Bernard Samson than George Smiley or James Bond, Damien's life and its attendant problems of career, money and relationships mean he will find an audience who can readily identify with him. Described by its author as a 'comedy noir', The Organisation is a unique portrait of the sinister yet comic world of spying. David Shayler draws on his experiences working at the heart of the secret state -- and being on the wrong side of it -- to say in fiction what he couldn't say in fact.
