REVIEW: The Coming Darkness by Greg Mosse

 

 

The Coming Darkness by Greg Mosse 

Release Date: 10th November 2022

Publisher: Moonflower Books

Genres: Dystopian / Thriller

A thrilling debut that has been likened to John Le Carré and Raymond Chandler . . .

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 . . .

"Superb – there's an ominous drumbeat throughout, and pace and tension, and a subtle and scarily plausible dystopia – and above all there's main character Alex Lamarque, who could be one of the greats. Greg Mosse writes like John Le Carré's hip grandson.”
LEE CHILD

“This is exactly the sort of big, meaty, ambitious thriller that the market needs. I haven’t read a book like this since I AM PILGRIM.”
ANTHONY HOROWITZ

Set in the not-too-distant future of 2037, Alex Lamarque is an intriguing, mysterious sort of character who carries out security missions, hunting down eco terrorists in the world that is now feeling the cruel hand of world disasters, brought about by the fact that the world's population carried on as we are doing right now, not caring about its impact on the planet. A world beset by sickness, poverty and the disastrous consequences of global warming. Caught up in a major threat that could ultimately bring the world to its knees, Alex must race against forces that are determined to bring about a sort of reset to the world. But at what cost? Alex's unique ability to foresee coming events in a type of sixth sense means that we are carried along with his sense of foreboding about what is to come and whether he can stop it.

I have to admit that initially I found this book really hard to get into. The beginning of it was largely scene setting with a lot of characters to get my head round, but I stuck with it and I'm glad I did. It's a very cleverly written book with undertones of what is happening to the world right now and carries with it a chilling message. Sometimes it felt that this wasn't a story set in the future but was in fact our current reality, or at least something not too far off. Because the book is set in 2037 and not hundreds of years into the future it was much easier to relate to although the technology used in 2037 did seem quite advanced. I did struggle a bit with some of the French names and remembering who was but soon found my stride. I sometimes switched between the paperback and the audio version and enjoyed going between the two and listening to the story while in the car driving. I found the audio book helped me relate a little more to the characters.

The Coming Darkness is a tense thriller that can be hard going at times but definitely worth the read if you can commit to getting to know the characters and which ones are the major players in this story of intrigue and a terrifying familiarity of what might be and what we've actually all endured through the recent pandemic. If we're not careful, Alex's world might very well soon become our own! 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

A theatre director, playwright and actor Greg Mosse is the founder and director of the Criterion New Writing programme at the Criterion Theatre in London, running workshops in script development to a diverse community of writers, actors and directors. In addition, since 2015, Greg has written, produced and stage 25 plays and musicals.

 

Greg set up both the Southbank Centre Creative Writing School - an open access program of evening classes delivering MA level workshops - and the University of Sussex MA in Creative Writing at West Dean College which he taught for 4 years. 

 

The husband of the bestselling novelist Kate Mosse, Kate’s hit novel Labyrinth was inspired by a house that Greg and his mother bought together in the French medieval city of Carcassonne, where the couple and their children spent many happy summers. Following the success of Labyrinth, Greg created the innovative readers-and-writers website mosselabyrinth.co.uk MosseLabyrinth. The first of its kind MosseLabrynth was the world’s first online accessible 3D world, and the inspiration for Pottermore - the popular Harry Potter website. 

 

A multilinguist, Greg has lived and worked in Paris, New York, Los Angeles and Madrid and has worked as both an interpreter at a variety of international institutions and a teacher in the UK.

 

Greg and Kate live in Chichester, where Kate’s parents founded the Chichester Festival Theatre, they have two grown up children.

 

The Coming Darkness was written during lockdown and is Greg’s debut novel. 

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