The Coming Darkness by Greg Mosse

 

The Coming Darkness by Greg Mosse.

Published 10th November 2023 by Moonflower Books.

From the cover of the book:

Paris, 2037. Alexandre Lamarque of the French external security service is hunting for eco-terrorists. Experience has taught him there is no one he can trust – not his secretive lover Mariam, not even his old mentor, Professor Fayard, the man at the centre of the web. He is ready to give up. But he can’t.

In search of the truth, Alex must follow the trail through an ominous spiral of events, from a string of brutal child murders to a chaotic coup in North Africa. 

He rapidly finds himself in a heart-thumping race against chaos and destruction. 

He could be the world’s only hope of preventing THE COMING DARKNESS . . .

***********

Paris, 2037. Alexandre Lamarque, agent of the French external security service, is on the trail of eco-terrorists. He is just in time to head off an attack in Marseille, but something about this incident pricks the rare sense of intuition that marks him out as the top of his field - and this feeling of foreboding will not go away.

Throughout the missions that follow, a certainty that something bad is on the horizon continues to worry Alex, but he cannot put his finger on why. Then a bold attempt to extract a beleaguered Prime Minister from the chaos of a military coup in North Africa goes awry, and Alex finds himself with time on his hands as he awaits the judgement on his future - time he uses to look a little more closely at the goings on of the eco-terrorists with the help of his secret lover Mariam, and his old mentor Professor Fayard who wants him to come and work for him in Internal Security.

To find out the truth, Alex must follow a trail of disparate clues connected to a series of child murders in France; the mystery of his mother's infection with a dangerous, unknown pathogen; and the worrying agenda of a shady organisation called Tabula Rosa. Can Alex's intuition save the world from the coming darkness?

Well, what an absolute little gem this turned out to be! It starts with a series of episodes across different global locations, which do not immediately seem to be related. The diverse nature of the threads make them something of a poser, and very much like our protagonist Alex you feel yourself scrabbling about to make sense of it all. However, there is a seductive, slow-burn charm about the way Greg Mosse writes, and by degrees you are pulled into a gloriously twisty tale that encompasses unsettling near-future dystopia, first-class espionage shenanigans, and a delicious mystery that zings with everything I love about noir crime stories. It is a combination that is seriously addictive.

The near-future setting is cleverly imagined, in a world where the global impact of climate change is starting to bite. Political instability; the scarcity of resources; the rising risk of untreatable viral infections; and the suspicion with which displaced people are viewed make the perfect breeding grounds for intrigue, greed, mania, and violence - and Mosse uses this simmering, melting pot of potential motivators to devious perfection in the way he plots out this complex thriller. He does his level best to throw red-herrings and misdirection at you throughout, which prove to be excellent fun to sift through at the side of Alex and his colleagues, and for most of the story you really have no idea who Alex can trust. The pace ratchets up with exquisite suspense, until the evil intentions of the villains of the piece are laid bare, and all the little pieces fall into place with shocking clarity. Mosse then treats you to a fine double climax full of James Bond-esque thrills and spills, with the action flipping between Paris and North Africa as the clock counts down to global disaster. My heart was in my throat for the entire final section of this book, and I loved every second.

This book has all the hallmarks of the first in a new series of really intelligent page-turners. Alex is an intriguing protagonist, with his almost supernatural prophetic abilities, but Mosse builds a really interesting team around him over the course of the story too - and I really want to see them working together to save the world once more. My fingers are crossed!

The Coming Darkness is available to buy now in hardcover, ebook and audio formats.

Thank you to Moonflower Books for sending me a proof of this book in return for an honest review, and to Midas PR for inviting me to be part of this blog tour.

About the author:

Greg Mosse is an actor, director, and writer, and husband of international bestselling author, Kate Mosse. He has lived and worked in Paris, New York, Los Angeles and Madrid. 

Having worked as an interpreter at a variety of international institutions, in 2015 Greg returned to theatre. Since then, he has written and produced 25 plays and musicals. 

He took advantage of 2020’s lockdown to fulfil a long-held ambition to write his first novel.