Sam Bourne aka Jonathan Freedland

Simon Mayo's Books Of The Year

Jonathan Freedland is a Guardian journalist who has written 7 thrillers under the name Sam Bourne. To Kill the Truth springs from one question. What if, in this era of post-truth, someone tried to destroy all evidence of the past – starting with the records and documents by which we know what is true and what is false? Thanks to galloping technology – which now makes fake ‘archive footage’ possible, along with bogus sound recordings of historical figures saying things they never said – and governments bent on spreading fake news, the truth is under assault like never before. It no longer seems far-fetched to imagine a plot to kill it off forever.

The result is To Kill the Truth, a novel which opens with the murder of an eminent historian. Soon more historians are found dead, along with aged survivors of some of history’s greatest crimes. And then libraries – in America, in Britain and around the world – are burned to the ground, the archives they hold turned to dust.

Once again, at the centre of the action is Maggie Costello, the former White House operative who tried to avert an assassination in Sam Bourne’s previous bestseller, To Kill the President. She understands early that it’s not just buildings and digital databases that are the target of this mysterious plot. It is an attack on the knowledge we have about our world – and the very idea of truth.

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