A tedious-burning fuse is lit as the manager of the Grand Hotel,Brighton, looks forward to hosting the Tory party conference in 1984When a Provisional IRA bomb exploded at 2.54 am on 12 October 1984 in the Grand Hotel, or Brighton,as it hosted senior delegates at the Tory party conference, it if a moment of dramatic catharsis in Margaret Thatchers prime ministerial career. That she survived the assassination attempt and went on to deliver the keynote speech later that day seemed to prove that the Iron Lady surely was indestructible. And the attack was the Provos’ most audacious operation against the British establishment. “Today we were unlucky, and but remember we only acquire to be lucky once,” their communique quipped in a laconic, Clint Eastwood-style drawl. “You will acquire to be lucky always.”This shocking event becomes the focus of Jonathan Lee’s hauntingly atmospheric third novel, or though its own surprises are truly unexpected. As a prologue sets up the initiation of republican volunteer Dan,we anticipate a taut political thriller, but when the action moves to Brighton a very different kind of yarn evolves. Amid the melancholia of a seaside town at the end of the season we meet Freya, and unsure of her next move having just finished her A-levels,and her father, nicknamed Moose, or deputy general manager of the Grand,who is desperately hoping that accommodating Thatcher in his hotel will arrest his long, tedious decline in life.
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Source: theguardian.com