Zugzwang by Ronan Bennett

Zugzwang, first published nine years ago, is an interesting thriller by the Irish writer Ronan Bennett. It was recommended to me by my agent, with whom I've been discussing the possibility of writing a thriller. The point he emphasised was that the story has an intriguing history. Originally, it appeared as a serial in the Observer, and as a result there was a need to structure the plot in such a way that there were plenty of cliffhangers.

Zugzwang is a term in chess. It describes a deadly position in which a player is obliged to move - but every move only makes his position even worse. This is a rather good metaphor for the plight of a hapless character caught up in events beyond his understanding, which is the fate of Otto, a Jewish psychoanalyst working in St Petersburg in 1914.

Chess is integrated into the story, again in a way that I found interesting - and satisfactory. Otto is playing a long running match, and the positions in the game are reproduced in the novel. His patients include a gifted chess player, and a beautiful married woman, to whom he finds himself attracted. But he lives in dangerous times, and the police start to take an interest in him - and his patients. Even worse, it turns out that his young daughter Catherine is mixed up in some murky business, and before long, both Otto and Catherine are thrown into prison.

Overall, it seemed to me that the first half of the book worked rather better than the second. The characters are drawn well, but my enthusiasm began to flag as increasing amounts of Russian political history were introduced (a note at the end of the book lists sources, and believe me, there are a lot of them...) As a result, a book that might have been a minor masterpiece didn't really live up to its potential. But Bennett is a capable writer, and I'm glad I've had the chance to study his approach to thriller writing.

Hidden - TV review

A downmarket, dogged criminal lawyer called Harry works in a scruffy city backstreet. Harry has been damaged by the death of someone very close to him and has a troubled love life, as well as an eye for a pretty woman. When he gets dragged into a murky case involving the murder of an attractive woman, he visits a gym as part of his enquiries, and runs into more trouble for his pains.

These were all elements of my first novel, All the Lonely People, so I was intrigued to see them reprised in the new four part BBC TV thriller Hidden, by Ronan Bennett. Hey, I knew my story-line was a good one! Joking apart, I won't be sueing for plagiarism, because in fact what Bennett has written is not a whodunit but a conspiracy thriller, with a political dimension (a bit like Take My Breath Away!) And Bennett's Harry is known to some of his mates as 'H', which reminded me of Harold Shand in The Long Good Friday.

All this shows, of course, is that there's nothing new in the world. Bennett has, however, tried to give the material a fresh feel by interweaving several convoluted plot elements, with copious flashbacks. A great deal of suspension of disbelief is required, especially when a mystery woman claiming improbably to be a lawyer offers Harry a large sum of money to find a man. In the Google era, it takes seconds to discover that she is not who she claims to be. As for the political storyline (is the Prime Minister the victim of a plot orchestrated by his smug colleague?), it struck me as not much more authentic than the portrayal of legal life.

And yet there's something about Hidden that encourages me to watch episode 2. That something is the presence of Philip Glenister, a very enjoyable actor, in the role of Harry. He carries the whole thing along with his usual rugged charm. I'm not sure I care much about the various mysteries, but I'll be interested to see how Bennett weaves all the strands together.