‘There are some novelists who, by instincts or study, understand perfectly the independent components of a thriller. Stanley Johnson is one of them.’
‘It’s brilliant and, who knows, maybe it’s true.’
‘In its complex plotting and intrigue, Kompromat not only suggests that Russia was influencing the US election campaign, but behind the scenes bolstering the fortunes of the Leave campaign. Of course, Kompromat is an entertainment but Johnson is quite chuffed that some of his plot twists have proved prescient.’
'A rollicking work of fiction that sets conniving caricatures of real-life figures amid a diorama of recent world events...Mr. Johnson, a former member of the European Parliament and the father of British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, clearly knows all the drills. The author of 25 earlier works of fiction and nonfiction, he has a lifetime’s expertise that adds comic credibility to a caper combining the antic action of Mad magazine’s old "Spy vs. Spy" cartoons with the gonzo humor of Carl Hiaasen.'
'Brilliant.'
‘An enjoyable satire...while still being all too scarily believable.’
‘Perfect beach material.’
‘This is a brilliant alternative account of recent and current events.’
'A rollicking work of fiction that sets conniving caricatures of real-life figures amid a diorama of recent world events...Mr. Johnson, a former member of the European Parliament and the father of British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, clearly knows all the drills. The author of 25 earlier works of fiction and nonfiction, he has a lifetime’s expertise that adds comic credibility to a caper combining the antic action of Mad magazine’s old "Spy vs. Spy" cartoons with the gonzo humor of Carl Hiaasen.'
‘Perfect beach material.’
08/28/2017
This thriller has the makings of a gleeful romp through geopolitical skullduggery, but Johnson (The Commissioner) has laid out something that looks more like an alternative history for our grim and disrupted times. The hyperkinetic action starts off with Russian president Igor Popov shooting a putative Republican presidential candidate in the buttocks with a tranquilizer dart in a cleverly contrived Siberian setup, but it keeps returning to efforts to jump-start, then fan the flames of, a Brexit-style campaign for the United Kingdom. Johnson, a longtime figure on the British political scene, aims for satire as he sketches out Operation Tectonic Plate, Popov’s nefarious scheme to destabilize his country’s opponents and place a friendly face in the White House, but the ripped-from-the-headlines plot is too close to actual (or easily imagined) fact to provoke real laughter. The reader will find no sympathetic characters, and the corridors of power from Berlin to Beijing to Washington all convey the same sense of grasping self-interest and greedy fear that confirms the worst suspicions of how politics really work. (Oct.)
"A different sort of ambiguity propels English author Stanley Johnson’s outrageous political-espionage satire KOMPROMAT, a rollicking work of fiction that sets conniving caricatures of real-life figures amid a diorama of recent world events.
Front and center is Ronald C. Craig, the “proud and manly” American TV-show host and entrepreneur running for president of the United States, who tweets and tub-thumps such campaign catchphrases as “Build the Wall!” and “Drain the Swamp!” Then there is the jet-flying Russian president Igor Popov (“five eight in height [with] thinning hair, carefully brushed back to cover a bald spot”), whose high-profile mission to save the world’s tigers serves as a mask for his high-tech meddling in elections from Germany to England to America. Not to be overlooked are various Chinese government operatives bent on persuading England, through fair means and foul, to remain in the European Union.
Our witness to the main players’ shenanigans is British cabinet minister Edward Barnard, who, in the course of his globe-trotting duties, survives an attempted assassination by means of a poisonous Australian spider, and the leaking of a video purporting to show him cavorting with two Russian prostitutes. 'Classic Kompromat stuff,' a British Secret Service man scolds Barnard regarding the latter. 'Ministers who go to Russia surely know the drill: don’t talk to strange blonde women in hotel lobbies. Don’t go upstairs with them. Above all, don’t go to bed with them.'
Mr. Johnson, a former member of the European Parliament and the father of British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, clearly knows all the drills. The author of 25 earlier works of fiction and nonfiction, he has a lifetime’s expertise that adds comic credibility to a caper combining the antic action of Mad magazine’s old “Spy vs. Spy” cartoons with the gonzo humor of Carl Hiaasen."
— The Wall Street Journal
