The Fourth Protocol
By Frederick Forsyth
This is the fifth novel written by that master of his trade, Frederick Forsyth. I thoroughly enjoyed the first four, all masterpieces of creativity, research, and imagination.
Forsyth excels in introducing many disparate threads and, over 400 pages, interweaving them into a thrilling conclusion. This one is more of the same.
As was the case in the preceeding novel, The Devil’s Alternative, this book is mostly based in the UK of the 1980s, the Cold War still meaning mistrust between East and West. Whereas the previous book used pseudonyms for its famous people, they play prominent roles in here under their real names, starting from the beginning with the traitor Kim Philby, now elderly.
The crux of the story is based around a history lesson, how the Hard Left had infiltrated the Labour party, and how Kinnock would be removed as leader democratically mere hours after winning an election.
This was an interesting history lesson for me: I was alive at the time, but, of course, had no idea about the machinations of the unions behind the scenes, voting as a block, such that the opinion-leaders had major power. It’s actually pretty scary to think what those people could have done, had things turned out a little differently.
Anyway, the plan here is that the USSR plants an agent in Britain, who meets a series of couriers, in order that he can build a nuclear weapon. He’ll press the button immediately prior to the general election of 1987. Labour is the only political party committed to disarming, and the populace will swing its votes by the necessary 10% needed to have Labour elected, after which the Hard Left, utilising their block votes, will have Kinnock replaced by their chosen puppet, and the UK will became a Soviet state. Not good.
Anyway, Forsyth weaves his narrative wonderfully. These Forsyth reviews are somewhat samey in that I seem to always say the same things, but it’s hard not to with books that are so good 
Tags: Frederick Forsyth