PALISADE
Lou Gilmond (lougilmond.com)
Fairlight Books (fairlightbooks.co.uk)
£9.99
Buy a copy from your favourite independent bookshop
Chief Whip Esme Kanha and back-bencher Harry Colbey are back, and this time they’re in Opposition. When a popular journalist dies in a road accident, Kanha finds herself in possession of a list of names; names of people from both sides of the aisle. With no idea what the list means, or why the people on it have been chosen, Esme and Harry set out to investigate and find out why this has landed in their lap. Meanwhile, the government – a coalition that includes a tech-savvy party whose leader is now Deputy Prime Minister and Home Secretary – are trying to push through their Security and Intelligence Bill – or the Surveillance Bill, as Colbey christens it – with as little opposition and scrutiny as possible. Colbey, as the man who was once in charge of the Ministry of Personal Information, is determined to block them at every turn, and to expose the Bill for what it is. So surely it’s coincidence that his credit card and bank account have stopped working; his train ticket has been cancelled; and he seems to be running afoul of the police on a regular basis. Right? As Kanha and Colbey dig into these linked mysteries, they discover an old enemy is back on the scene, which can only spell trouble for everyone.
Here’s a question: how would you feel if the government had access to every electronic device that could possibly record you in your home, your office, your car, the street? This is the question Lou Gilmond asks us in her follow-up to 2023’s Dirty Geese as she presents the new British Government’s new Security and Intelligence Bill, which would give the ruling classes carte blanche to spy on its citizens without any oversight or controls in place. Once again AI – artificial intelligence – is at the centre of everything and Gilmond expands on the concepts she introduced in her previous novel, taking the threat to privacy to the next level, while still managing to keep it realistic. Palisade may feel like a science fiction novel – hell, as little as fifteen or twenty years ago it would have been science fiction – but it’s frighteningly real. This series is less about what might happen in a very near future, and more about what could be happening today – the technology against which Kanha and Colbey find themselves pitted is a sometimes frightening picture of the “art of the possible” when it comes to AI: intelligent drones; stickers that act as microphones that can easily be stuck to any surface and send a stream of any conversations anywhere; deepfaked videos showing powerful or famous people saying things they have never said, or caught in compromising positions that can then be used for blackmail; police helmets, glasses and contact lenses that are connected to the internet, and to a server that contains information about everyone and can identify someone by their facial features, the shape of their ears, the way they walk or move. The idea of a surveillance state where everything we do is recorded and stored away and used by analysts to identify possible threats is not as far-fetched now as it was when, say, Philip K. Dick wrote The Minority Report way back in 1956.
Back in the saddle for a second outing are our favourite fictional politicians, Esme Kanha and Harry Colbey. Their relationship has gone to a whole new level, and their current position in Opposition means they have to fight harder than ever before to ensure they get the best outcome for their constituents. Palisade picks up several months after Dirty Geeseand we learn that Kanha was defeated in the post-election leadership competition. Still in her position as Chief Whip, she finds herself clashing, on a regular basis, with the Party’s new leader. Colbey has returned to the relative quiet of the back benches and has been divorced by his social butterfly wife. He is more determined than ever to fight for the peoples’ right to privacy, though he is aware that, in his current position, what he can affect is severely limited. It is good to be back in their company, despite the fact that we probably shouldn’t like or trust them, and Gilmond continues to build upon the foundations laid in the first book, developing the characters and their relationship, making them feel more real every time we encounter them.
As they investigate, they discover a plot to buy up huge tracts of Chelsea in order to turn it into an exclusive home/playground/gated compound for billionaires who belong to what is mysteriously referred to as the Owners Club. As if things aren’t bad enough for poor Colbey, he discovers that his daughter’s boyfriend is part of this club, leaving him powerless to protect her, watching from the sidelines as she is taken away from him by a man whom he considers the enemy, a man whose lifestyle his wife has coveted for years, and which she is slowly attaining for herself through savvy investments in Alcheminna, the company at the centre of Dirty Geese, and which seems to be behind everything that is happening.
Once again AI is at the heart of everything that’s going on, and Gilmond examines some of the ways in which it could be used for nefarious ends. She does this without going into too much detail about the technology. It’s obvious the book is well-researched, and Gilmond clearly has some knowledge of the current state of play, but she relies on the fear-mongering and worst-case scenario role-playing that is all most lay people know about AI. It works well, and we find ourselves asking how we would protect ourselves against these kinds of attacks or how, on a much larger scale, countries might protect themselves from bad actors using AI to gain access to…well, anything that they shouldn’t have access to. Technology aside, Palisade is a tautly-paced thriller filled with characters very similar to those we see on the news everyday. It’s this, Gilmond’s grasp of the inner workings of Parliament and government and the state of Britain today, that brings Palisade and, indeed, Esme Kanha and Harry Colbey to life in glorious TechnicolorⓇ. Here once again we see the seedy underbelly of British politics, and gain access to the corridors of power, and the broom cupboards where secret deals are made, secret plans hatched.
Anyone who picked up a copy of Lou Gilmond’s first Kanha and Colbey novel, Dirty Geese, will know what to expect. Palisade is a continuation that takes the tension to the next level. In many ways Palisade is Gilmond’s The Empire Strikes Back and while an excellent and thrilling story in its own right, spends some time setting the scene for the epic forest moon battle ahead. Ok, I’ve taken the analogy too far, but there is an epic battle looming on the horizon (Divinity Games is coming…) and it feels like nobody is safe. The underlying humourous current that runs through both Dirty Geese and Palisade is, I fear, designed to lull us into a false sense of security ahead of devastation and pain. Then again, maybe it’s just my pessimistic outlook. Either way, if you enjoy a well-constructed novel, something that will grip you and keep you engaged from the first page to the last, you won’t go far wrong with Lou Gilmond’s Kanha and Colbey books. While I suppose it’s possible to read Palisade on its own, you’ll miss a lot of character development and nuance, so I would highly recommend reading the books in order. Lou Gilmond is an excellent writer, who continues to hone her craft with each subsequent book. Palisade – and its predecessor – should appeal to fans of Neal Stephenson and William Gibson, but also to people who like to read a good, solid thriller. I’ll be counting down the days until Divinity Games and I can almost guarantee you will be too, if you decide to give this one a go.
