At last Australia has an action hero we can proudly call our own – Jay Ryan.
Ryan is the protagonist of JJ Cooper’s The Interrogator, an accomplished debut thriller about an Australian soldier whose life is turned upside down by a betrayal from within.
A solid page-turner, it’s a Godsend for commuters looking for the ideal travelling companion. In fact it’s so ideal I almost missed my train stop a couple of times while I was reading it.
Cooper draws heavily on his 17 years’ worth of Australian Army experience as a real-life interrogator to flesh out Ryan’s character.
When we meet Jay, he’s having a bad day. Sadly for him, it’s about to get much, much worse. He’s kidnapped, beaten up, blackmailed, threatened, and tortured – and that’s just in the first few pages.
It’s occasionally hard to separate the good guys from the bad in this racy read that’s full of surprises – to say more is to give too much away – and Cooper does an excellent job of keeping the reader riveted to the page.
The Interrogator sets the scene for an inspired series that would translate well to the small screen, if not the big one.
I’m looking forward to more Jay Ryan adventures.
This book begins with a bang, literally, heads straight to a nasty interrogation, then never lets the reader go. Jay Ryan is a specialist interrogator who must fulfil a mission for a shady organisation. Cooper's debut novel contains some amazing action sequences and some interesting detail drawn from his own experience as an interrogator in Iraq and Afghanistan. Despite a not entirely satisfactory denouement, readers are in for a ride as they hurtle toward a thrilling climax.
The Daily Telegraph 03/10/09
