London Lies Bleeding: a book review

Kimber’s novels share common virtues, however: they are all fast-paced, entertaining thrillers that are as intellectually stimulating as they are page-turners. Kimber’s aim is the same as that of his literary exemplar, Colin Wilson: to write with a “wide-angled vision” that does not “merely reflect the everyday” – the ordinariness of a life lived at …

London Lies Bleeding is Gomery Kimber’s fourth novel and the first installment in a series about the mysterious and intense former spy, Justin Martello, who, from the promotional material surrounding the book, is promised to be a “new kind of hero.”

So, who is this Mr. Martello, and what makes him tick?

Martello is an experienced former spy with a haunted past and an uncertain future shaped largely by his high demand among the Western power elite. Both his parents were murdered when he was a boy, thus forming the spiritual crucible for Martello’s unusual psychological formation. The target of his revenge, however, remains vague and unformed; known only in flashes of fear or ecstasy, at the limits of existence, and experienced on the very threshold of life and death that only a tortured spy can know. Symptomatically or not, Martello is a student of the occult, frequently referencing a mysterious text by the name of The Science of the ‘I’, whose practices and rituals he ardently performed just a year or so before the events in London Lies Bleeding. Who knows of their effect on Martello’s inner and outer life?

Fate, it seems, is intent on uniting two worlds, of action and the metaphysical heights, with missions for former special operatives, royalty, and corrupt politicians, seemingly interwoven into a deeper calling, even a spiritual quest of redemption of some damaged part of Martello’s soul and psyche.

Already, you can tell that Kimber doesn’t write your ten-a-penny, off-the-shelf thriller.

Kimber’s novels share common virtues, however: they are all fast-paced, entertaining thrillers that are as intellectually stimulating as they are page-turners. Kimber’s aim is the same as that of his literary exemplar, Colin Wilson: to write with a “wide-angled vision” that does not “merely reflect the everyday” – the ordinariness of a life lived at low-intensity consciousness – but as an attempt to liberate the human imagination and “give the reader a glimpse of what human beings might become”.

Enter Justin Martello, the vehicle for Kimber’s new brand of evolutionary thriller.

Thrust into a world of the seedy and corrupt, the criminally insane and the countervailing forces of the state – of special forces, British intelligence, and increasingly misled and equally criminal royalty and political classes – Martello finds himself, once again, in the belly of the beast. We too find ourselves in a familiar world of nihilistic modernity, at the crossroads of corruption and decline, and civilisational crisis. This, however, is Martello’s cross to bear, his curse and his blessing, the alchemical ingredients of his redemption that call him to action. Our hero never loses this focus, the knowledge that he – in some intangible, metaphysical way – is born to ride the tiger of a spiritually barren postmodernity, and through it, might achieve some crucial victory over his tormented soul. With each assignment and mission, Martello, a middle-aged and hardened spy, skilled and scarred, shows us what he’s made of in an England at breaking point.

Now, it would be a pity to reveal too much of the plot of London Lies Bleeding, as it unfolds in such a way that it carries the reader on a psycho-spiritual adventure. But it is important in a review such as this to whet the reader’s appetite, so I’ll provide an outline while underlining the importance of its basic themes, some of which I have touched upon above.

Martello, through fate, calling, destiny or circumstance – or all four – is called upon a new mission, one that is so entangled in the intrigues and intricacies of high society and illicit international gang activity, that it seems almost too risky to undertake. At its most basic level, it is a hostage situation involving an Italian with the striking name of Max Nero. The client is an Arabian Prince, moneyed, wise, and inevitably entangled with the politics of modern-day London. All of this, however, is overseen by a charismatic aristocrat, Piers Wyvern, who seems to be the puppet master of Martello’s existence, and who returns time and again to force the reluctant Martello into yet another assignment stacked with impossible odds.

The tensions and dynamics in London Lies Bleeding emerge from the counterpoints between Martello and those with whom he comes into contact. For instance, Wyvern is his opposite, being a man of pleasure, leisure, and gluttony. Martello notes that, for Wyvern, it is “around pleasure that he arranged his life”. For Martello, however, our new kind of hero, his orientation lies in the domain of the spiritual, and the alchemical transmutation of the merely human into the Olympian. Yet, in the tensions and challenges, Martello finds himself so involved that these two worlds often come crashing together, with revelatory impact both for Martello and for the reader.

The mixture of metaphysical heights and occultism with the depths of political intrigue and corruption, form the crux of London Lies Bleeding, informing the unique and quick psychology of Martello, whose story represents a confluence of forces, both worldly and otherworldly. In this sense, he is a new type of hero, with the challenges and fascinations that occupy his existence forming the potent dialectic at the heart of Kimber’s evolutionary fiction. Kimber always poses difficult questions, unresolvable mysteries that are as perennial as they are irresolvable by the rational mind, for new modes of perception are needed to become operational before they can be known. The “wide-angled vision” promised by Kimber, and competently executed throughout London Lies Bleeding, is either at the forefront or simmering beneath the surface of its pages.

Each time, the tensions and problems that Martello must face, erupt or take upon a new guise, whether this be through a physical or psychological threat to our hero’s existence, or through a symbolic call to adventure. The adventures of Martello are terrifying and life-threatening, and full of the tension of the Hero’s Journey, described by the mythologist, Joseph Cambell, as comprising of the “courage to seek the depths; the image of creative rebirth; the eternal cycle of change within us; the uncanny discovery that the seeker is the mystery which the seeker seeks to know.”

Martello, like Kimber’s avowed aim, is oriented toward transcendence and self-overcoming. So, if you’re worried about a shallow, escapist thriller, then you can rest assured. London Lies Bleeding is a page-turner, yes, but it is also a call to arms for a more expanded consciousness, a more ‘complete’ mind, the higher ‘I’ – the unified selfhood – which is precisely the “mystery which the seeker seeks to know”.

Now, despite these high goals, London Lies Bleeding never becomes too abstract or technical. Kimber is an adept storyteller, entertaining and skilled at engaging the higher faculties of imagination and intellect. T.E. Lawrence once said that “happiness is absorption”, and this seems to be Gomery Kimber’s goal: to create a thriller that is absorbing and challenging enough to inspire an involved – and evolved – engagement from the reader. Like his first novel, The Killing House – the first in the ‘Big Shilling Trilogy’ – London Lies Bleeding is cathartic and invigorating, throwing us into the tumult and chaos of a life lived on the razor’s edge of fear, ecstasy – even madness – and, of course, spiritual insight that carries us over the dam. Or, put more simply, we might say that there’s never a dull moment in Kimberland!

Again, Kimber ensures that we’re shown the Yin and Yang of human existence. The reader may even detect a Hemingway-like intensity to Martello, our ‘new hero’, who celebrates the life lived more intensely, despite his reluctance to return to the fray of countering political intrigue and international crime syndicates vying for control over Britain’s capital. All experience for Martello is grist for the mill of evolution, and if that means rescuing another hostage or pursuing Albanian gangsters into the depths of night, then so be it!

On a personal note, I read this novel – available on Kindle from Amazon – almost in a single sitting over the Christmas holiday period. As most will attest, this time of year is a liminal moment of festivities that leaves behind a heady psychic ferment. Despite these pleasant distractions, however, I found that my mind rarely strayed from the mystery and thrilling world of Martello and London Lies Bleeding.

Much like the French novelist Henri Barbusse’s narrator in the 1908 L’Enfer, Martello is a man who sees ‘too deep and too much’. Unlike the defeated existentialists and nihilistic postmodernists of our present age, however, Martello’s advantage is a vision that transcends the self-cannibalising trap of relativism. Instead, readers will find themselves in the presence of a new type of hero who might just have what it takes to escape modernity’s maze of mirrors. It is this quality of seriousness and philosophic – even spiritual – engagement that elevates London Lie Bleeding above the multitude of modern thrillers.

Justin Martello returns in the second novel of the series, Assassin of London, which is the story of the Khawabi affair, and which precedes the events of London Lies Bleeding. It is scheduled for publication by Procursus Press in February 2024.

Join the Club

Like this story? You’ll love our monthly newsletter.

Thank you for subscribing to the newsletter.

Oops. Something went wrong. Please try again later.