Illustration by Daniel Pudles
STOKING terror has been a staple of thrillers ever since Erskine Childers wrote “The Riddle of the Sands” more than 100 years ago. Foreign invasions? Deadly microbes? Nuclear explosions? Each decade boasts its emblematic page-turners. These may be works of fiction, but for the most part they are inspired by the real-world terrors of their own particular time.
In that sense, this summer’s offerings are no different. Instead of the rogue Russian submarines of the cold-war years, several thrillers due to be published over the next few weeks feature a frightening level of day-to-day surveillance, a squeeze on civil liberties and inexorable government creep. A cut above these, and quite different, is “Ultimatum” by Matthew Glass. The publisher is already describing Mr Glass as the heir to Tom Clancy (for “The Hunt for Red October”) and to Michael Crichton (for “State of Fear”, his diatribe about global warming). “Ultimatum” is better than either of these. The first politico-diplomatic-disaster thriller, Mr Glass’s engrossing work leaves the reader thinking long after the last page is turned.
The book is set in 2032, between a landslide American election and the early weeks of the new presidency. In the previous decades there has been a fundamentalist coup in Pakistan, a wholesale collapse of the Chinese stock market and a government-backed massacre in Hong Kong. At the same time, large swathes of the American coast, as well as eastern Asia and Sri Lanka, are under water. Hurricanes sweep regularly through the American South and wildfires rage through much of the West. More than 25m Americans must be moved to higher ground; whole new cities are being planned. But the losing Republican government has been miserly in its allocation of resources and the relocation programme risks turning into long lines of dusty refugee tents rather than anything forward-looking and inspired.
The newly elected president, Joe Benton, is shocked to learn that his predecessor’s administration has also been knowingly under-reporting the catastrophic effects of global warming. The world is dangerously close to disaster. “How long do you keep going before you admit a process isn’t working?” asks Benton’s pugnacious secretary of state, Larry Olsen, who wants to put a stop to the blah-blah of international environmental diplomacy.
Benton too is frustrated with 30 years of successive Kyoto treaties and proposes a radical international solution. In order for it to succeed he must first bring on-board the earth’s greatest polluter, China. At great risk, Benton begins secret bilateral talks. The leadership in Beijing is unfazed by the threat of economic disaster. It sees Benton’s gambit as an opportunity to redress wrongs, rewrite history and reshape the world’s political balance.
Matthew Glass is the pseudonym of an Australian-born doctor, now living in Britain, who writes fiction in his spare time and wants (for the moment, at least) to keep his real identity concealed. For a first-time novelist to range so far from what is familiar is highly unusual. But Mr Glass rises to the challenge.
Several characteristics lift his novel above the average. His portrait of the effects of global warming is as vivid as it is dark. The author’s research, both scientific and political, is meticulous, yet it never swamps the story. The book may be set in the future, but it is really about today. “Ultimatum” does a better job of convincing the reader about the price the world will pay for its complacency about global warming than any international grandstanding or dry scientific reports.
Dialogue and speeches drive the plot, giving Mr Glass the opportunity to create a presidential hero (along with his plain-speaking wife, intelligent daughter and troubled son) who even in his darkest hour is eloquent and unflinching. “I stand before you, I think, as a president who bears the gravest burden a president has ever borne.” Mr Glass, who has worked in America and with human-rights groups, is familiar with the corridors and committee-rooms of power. He is good at portraying diplomatic brinkmanship and political in-fighting, and knows how policy gets made, all areas that a clumsier writer might have struggled to bring to life. This is a novel for politician and non-politician alike. And the ending is brilliant.
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Grove Atlantic has an excerpt from the book.
Book details
Ultimatum
By Matthew Glass
Grove Atlantic; 400 pages; $24. Atlantic Books; £9.99
Buy it at
Amazon.com
Amazon.co.uk
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