Identity Theory by Peter Temple
Noir In The Age Of Privatisation
John Anselm is a former Beirut hostage, a war correspondent who went to
one war too many. A burnt-out case, he lives in Hamburg, working for a
semi-legal, near-broke surveillance firm and trying to come to terms with
his past. Then into his life comes Con Niemand, ex-mercenary and
professional survivor. Niemand has had the unluckiest break of his life – he
has stumbled across evidence of a terrible secret and now he’s on the run,
the focus of a relentless high-tech manhunt across England to the remote
Welsh mountains. Against his will, Anselm is plunged into a world of
violence, betrayal and death. He must break out of his anesthetized life
and pit himself against forces that he does not understand, forces
determined to rebury a secret that can destroy reputations and lives across
the globe.
Personal Review: Identity Theory by Peter Temple
There are a lot of people trying their hand at writing these techno thrillers
where you can track down anyone anywhere in the world by just using a
computer, hacking into various systems etc. The few I've read were
cheezy. Not so with Identity Theory.
Peter Temple's Identity Theory reminded me of John Le Carre's work in
that it's characters are low-key, diligently working under the radar towards
figuring the puzzle...towards the end game. Multinational.
Anyway I loved it. I also loved Temple's The Broken Shore, Bad Debts,
and Black Tide. And will be reading Shooting Star ('99), Dead Point (2000),
and White Dog ('03) in the near future. Also Truth (2008, forthcoming).
Peter Temple has become one of my favorite authors. Robert Wilson is
another.

David Honeybone, the editor of Crime Factory magazine who also runs the
Crime Writers' Association of Australia, sums up the plot better than I could
ever.
"Con Niemand is an ex-mercenary, a South African trained in the art of
killing. He earns a living by doing security, running protection for wealthy
South Africans who find themselves in a country gripped by lawlessness,
still searching for stability post-apartheid. The sole survivor of a job gone
wrong, Niemand comes into possession of a video showing American
soldiers in an African village, a charnel landscape, where they are calmly
dispatching survivors. Survivors of what, though? Niemand hasn't much
time to contemplate that question before he's contacted by the tape's
owners in London, and with dollar signs in his eyes he boards the next
flight out of South Africa to return their property. But such is the importance
of this tape that he unwittingly becomes the target of a deadly manhunt.
Switch to Hamburg, Germany, and meet John Anselm, a journalist piecing
his life back together after being kidnapped in Beirut. His brain a shattered
switchboard of half-memories, courtesy of a rifle butt to the skull from a
captor, Anselm controls panic attacks by drinking. He earns a living
through a shady but sophisticated electronic-surveillance agency whose
clients require information on everything from errant wives to industrial
espionage. Unaware of Niemand's situation and that they share dangerous
knowledge, Anselm is employed to track the ex-mercenary's movements,
until a series of violent events lead their paths to cross, just as the threat of
an exhumed American foreign policy secret raises the stakes for all
concerned."
Highly recommended!
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