A private security contractor loses it in the Congo, with deadly consequences, while in Ireland the ex-prime minister struggles to write his memoir. A tabloid star is killed in a helicopter crash and three years later a young journalist is warned off the story. As a news story breaks in Paris, a US senator prepares his campaign to run for office.

What links these things and who controls what we know?

With echoes of John Le Carre and 24, Alan Glynn has written another crime novel of and for our times - a ferocious thriller that moves from Dublin to New York via West Africa, and thrillingly explores the legacy of corruption in big business, the West's fear of China, the fate of ex-military, the role of back room political players, and the quick fix of online news.