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    The Bell Ringers: A Novel
    The Bell Ringers: A Novel
    The Bell Ringers: A Novel
    Audiobook13 hours

    The Bell Ringers: A Novel

    Written by Henry Porter

    Narrated by John Lee

    4/5

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    About this audiobook

    In The Bell Ringers, England in the near future appears largely unchanged. There are concerns over the threat of terrorism, the press is feisty, and the prime minister is soon to call a general election. But quietly-and largely unknown to the public or even most in government-things have become undeniably Orwellian: cameras with license plate recognition software record every car's movements, and a sophisticated, top-secret data-mining system known as Deep Truth combs through personal records, identifying violators of minor laws as well as those disposed to "antigovernment" beliefs. In the interest of security, the divide between private and public has crumbled. Freedom has given way to control.

    David Eyam was once the prime minister's head of intelligence. He was one of those who knew about Deep Truth, but he suffered a fall from grace and then died in a terrorist bombing. Now his former lover, Kate Lockhart, has been named as the benefactor of his estate. But Eyam has left her more than just his wealth; Kate is also the heir to his dangerous secrets and unfinished business.

    The full power of the out-of-control, security-obsessed state comes down on Kate, but with the help of the secret resistance known as the Bell Ringers, hope for freedom is not lost.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTantor Media, Inc
    Release dateMar 23, 2010
    ISBN9781400186587

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    Reviews for The Bell Ringers

    4/5

    58 ratings10 reviews

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    • 3/5
      The subject matter is timely and compelling, but not quite up to the author’s better works
    • 4/5
      Not my usual fare, but I enjoyed this book because it is a modernized version of George Orwell's 1984. In The Dying Light, the UK government has partnered with big business to collect and use data on citizens through drones, CCTVs, and mandatory ID cards that include your cell phone number. It's scary because it is so plausible that such action is possible even today. The plot was good....complex but never confusing and the book was a real page turner for me.
    • 4/5
      A great summer read. It starts a bit slow, but soon it grows into a page-turner. The story about the government spying on its people has been told numerous times, but Porter takes it to the next level. Here the government not only spies on its citizens, but also uses the results of its spying to supply the various government departments with actionable requests. So if your tax return was too low, but you had a couple of vacation trips, you may be served with a new tax bill, or imprisonment, by the department of revenue. Given that all machine learning algorithms get it right, when they do, on average, that means that there are a lot of innocent people that go to jail in this world...kind of scary since we are almost there.
    • 4/5
      Kate Lockhart returns to England from America to mourn her friend and lover, David Eyam. She is shocked to discover that although estranged for years Eyam has bequeathed her everything … including a conspiracy theory that could bring down the current government. “Big Brother” is indeed watching.

      Henry Porter brings Orwell’s 1984 into the 21st century and, if his afterward is to be believed (and why not?), much of this book is fact based. Although I found this book a little difficult to get into I plodded through the first hundred pages because a friend had loved it and loaned me the book. I always try to finish books loaned to me. I was certainly glad a persevered. One of the best political thrillers I have read in a long time.
    • 3/5
      It must be a little unusual when a book begins with the death of the main character and the book's driving force. In 'The Dying Light's case, David Eyam. A phenomenally intelligent man, not always easy to like or love, but certainly one of the leading brains of his, or many other, generations. A government advisor at the time of his death, he has uncovered a very worrying secret. A secret plan, directed from the very heart of government, with the help of those at the top of big business, to track and trace, control and nullify the opinions and will of the people. A plan to watch over people, right under their noses.

      Whilst the book opens in a perhaps little unusual way, unfortunately the story is all too depressingly real and possible. It is what reviewers call 'timely.' In that everything to fulfill the warnings the book is making, is already with us and it is a situation we are already willingly sleepwalking into. I think, at the heart of the book it revolves around the 'if you've got nothing to hide, you've got nothing to worry about' mantra, sold to us as being for our own safety and ultimate benefit by corporations and politicians. And that we are too numb to do anything but buy.

      The book has a perhaps very serious and concerning message behind and under it, but it is also a well-written, carefully thought out and plotted thriller. Languid and evocative in parts, hectic and tense in others. Information is revealed slowly and peeled away in layers to get at the full truth underneath. I did feel it sagged a little in the middle sections and there were a couple of times where I thought I was getting to the conclusions a long time before the characters really should have been, given their intelligence and access to all the same facts as me, but it picks it all up again and runs away with the prize towards the final 'that'll show them they can't muck around with us' climax. I'll certainly be looking for more books by Henry Porter. I'll recommend you do too.
    • 4/5
      Very interesting premise, mostly well written, but the "happy ending" was a bit disappointing and the sex scene completely superfluous. Could have been a 4, but doesn't quite get there for me.........
    • 4/5
      I listened to this one. The narration by John Lee was excellent.Set a few years in the future, this is the story of Kate Lockhart, who returns to England from several years in the US to find it transformed into a police state. Her old friend and lover has apparently been killed in a terrorist attack in Columbia.It's a realistic depiction of where technology and current trends are taking us. It's gone much further in the UK than in the US, but still pretty scary.
    • 5/5
      Magnificent and chilling, I really could not put this book down. Truly a spy story for our times, drawing on the best of the genre and some very real and pressing civil liberties concerns - highly recommended, but disquieting!
    • 5/5
      This is an exciting and fast-paced political thriller, set in the UK sometime in the near future. A meglomaniac prime minister, supported by a gangster-like businessman, have conspired to install an invasive database of personal information into government computers. An former government insider attempts to blow the whistle on the plot and is discredited. The book tells the story of the whistleblower's efforts to reveal the existence of the database to Parliament.It is hard to put down once you start to read it.The author notes that "The Dying Light" is a pair to his earlier book "Brandenberg", which I hope to read soon, hoping that it is as good as this one.
    • 4/5
      Tyrants never grab power directly or through some major event or action. They win by continually drip-feeding tiny changes that, of themselves, do not seem dangerous, but taken as a whole reveal a coup that we never saw coming.Henry Porter’s new novel is based in a world where the British Government has spent the years since the millennium slowly and slyly encroaching on civil liberties and personal freedoms, always in the name of ‘taking care’ of the people. A computer software system, DEEP TRUTH, sifts through many government and public databases making connections and inferring activities that may, or may not, be illegal. Expenditure is tracked against income to identify possible tax evasion. All movements are tracked continuously through advanced car number plate recognition. The list goes on.Perhaps worst of all, in Porter’s world politicians at the very highest level – Ministers of State – are little more than paid employees of big business.Porter has created a world different from ours in degree (and that only slightly) and not in general intent. The Nanny State is thriving in our midst and we neither know nor seem to care.This is a fast-paced book with believable characters acting in a world frighteningly close to our own. As a top-class work I recommend this to thriller lovers everywhere, to conspiracy theorists as a dark revelation of your bleakest nightmares and to libertarians as a wake-up call.“You don’t know what you’ve got ‘til it’s gone”.