Firefly

Excellent novel of migrants and spies. Interesting plot using a young boy with explosive information on Isis terrorism and the chase to find him through Greece and ending in Mesopotamia. Clever switches in the plot keep one on edge through to the explosive finale. Good read, recommended!

Gripping thriller following the story of a young refugee with a mysterious past who is fleeing to Germany alone, to find asylum for his family after his own personal family tragedy. He is also the carrier of a huge amount of data which ISIS leaders do not want getting into the wrong hands. He is therefore in double jeopardy as they are hunting him.

Cue Paul Sansom, a ex-refugee from Lebanon himself, he is now in the business of finding ‘missing persons’. He is assigned to find a young 13 year old boy, with whom it becomes personal – he gets to admire and feel for this young, intelligent and feisty young man who has to travel on his journey illegally as the authorities would put him into a camp as an ‘unaccompanied minor’. He knows he has to get his information to the West in an attempt to stop part of the horror, slaughter and torture he has witnessed in his own country.

Part of me thinks everyone should read this book – you experience the journey of a refugee on a personal level – the danger, fear, hunger, cold and pure brutality of police in countries who really don’t want the refugees anywhere near – (backed up by their Nations’ governments). The ‘Catch 22’ of only having a set period of time to get through a country, where another one has closed its borders due to a policy change – and the purely impossible predicaments these people find themselves in when they are stranded and outside a time limit – their documents then being worthless. The different types of refugees – victims of war or brutality and others, the economic migrants. The camps and staff trying their best to help them, also tales of help by local people (which I hope can still happen after such vast numbers of passers-through). All are here in rich descriptions, but the ones hunting our ‘Firefly’ are a particularly monstrous group.

You really feel for Firefly – the climax is unputdownable, edge-of-seat thrilling. I’d love to see this as a film. Great story and if read by anyone with an ounce of compassion, it’s going to change a lot of minds about the uncountable influx of tragedy flooding Europe. Astounding story. I’ve not read anything like this before.

A coming of age tale that is as harrowing as it is heartwarming. A story following a young boy desperate to reach the safety of Europe after escaping from war ravaged Syria. He joins the migrant trail with nothing but a promise to see him through the long hard months ahead. All the while knowingly persued by a relentless enemy.

A real page turner.

Henry Porter has produced an excellent contemporary spy novel, capturing the harrowing plight of refugees alongside the need to obtain vital intelligence from a young refugee boy who holds crucial knowledge about an impending ISIS attack in Europe.

It's essentially a chase story, but one with many twists and turns and rich characterisations of the main protagonists.

Fast moving and impactful, highly recommended.

I received this book from the publisher, but was not required to write a positive review.

Read the first chapter, wasn't engaged, thought I would give it a swerve.

Waiting for the kettle to boil, I read the second chapter.... and then the third... the fourth. "Hmmm" thought I "this is better than I first thought" and so I continued reading it.

The subject matter, immigration both legal and illegal is incidental to the story line and yet central to it as well. The author, Henry Porter, makes knowledgeable and intelligent points on the subject, without being so crass as to ram them in your face.

However, the book, the story of Naji and Paul, is everything. If that didn't work, the book wouldn't work, so it was a work.of art that it all came together in such style.

I was engrossed in the story and could not read it quickly enough whilst also trying to pace myself and make it last.

An excellent read that left this reader with a fresh perspective on the immigrants fleeing Syria and Africa.

One to read and one to talk about with friends.

An exceptionally well researched and written book that enthralled from the first page.

It tells of the search for an enterprising young refugee boy who possesses crucial knowledge about an impending ISIS attack on the European mainland.

Who will find him first? The good guys or the bad?

It is an exhilarating chase leavened with sadness at the harrowing descriptions of the plight of the refugees literally fleeing for their life.

Henry Porter has written an important book that educates as much as it entertains.

Highly recommended.