Gangrene

review targets: Guardian, Morning Star, Red Pepper, Irish Post, Irish Times, Author talks

'Ginge', an NCO in military intelligence, saw too much - and then he saw nothing...'Ginge', an NCO in military intelligence, saw too much - and then he saw nothing...A flashback sometimes zooms across my brain - a vivid blaze of light, followed by a vast wall of sound. Then oblivion. 'A mercury-tilt bomb? The bastards have gotten me!' I'd been in a hurry and gunned the car engine as I started out. I remember starting up a steep hill and then the flash, bang and wallop. the bomb had been placed underneath the vehicle - but a bit behind my driving seat. This saved my legs and probably my life, ...As he lies in a hospital bed links form in Ginge's mind - bit by bit. Were those events connected? What was his Major up to? Was there anyone he could trust? Who was the enemy? Was he just another 'loose end'?Gangrene is like The Ipcress File and The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists morphed into one. It is set during four months in 1994 and the events of the preceding three decades. It thrusts you into the heart of an NHS hospital, a mining community in Nottinghamshire and the dirty war in Northern Ireland.