Crisis: the action-packed Sunday Times No. 1 bestseller

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Most of the bad guys are two dimensional and the good guys are stereotypes, not identifiable as real people. Drawing on his years of experience reporting on security matters CRISIS is Frank Gardner’s debut novel. Carlton (and his bosses) eventually discover a plan that is ingenious, cunning and poses a real threat to the UK. Often this is done by making Carlton ask questions, or suffer an apparent loss of memory so that someone has to explain things to him.

This is a literary territory rather overpopulated at the moment, with swaggering 21st century pseudo-Bonds crawling out of the woodwork everywhere.He was an officer in the Green Jackets and worked in banking in Saudi Arabia, he speaks fluent Arabic. It is from the Frederick Forsyth school of thriller writing – a brilliantly fashioned, but unlikely tale – executed by an adrenaline-fuelled cast of characters. If you like your spy thrillers more James Bond than George Smiley, you may enjoy it but I won’t be going back for a second helping of Luke Carlton. Gardner needed to work far harder to create a more rounded, and complex lead character, rather than relying on lazy shortcuts.

If Ultimatum is even 80% similar to Crisis, though, I will give up 75% through, just as I wanted to at multiple points during Crisis.

I found it really bland and totally lacking in suspense - there was no point that I didn't think Luke would be completely safe and obviously they were going to find the bomb; slightly enjoyed that the villains were Colombian narcos and not the usual Middle Eastern, but really, that's about the best I can say for it.