Monday 3 November 2008

Book of the Week - Peter Grimsdale, Perfect Night


Perfect Night is a debut thriller by Peter Grimsdale which has received good reviews. After joining the BBC in 1980, Grimsdale became editor of Crimewatch and produced documentaries on a range of subjects including the Tamil uprising in Sri Lanka. In 1994 he became Channel 4's Commissioning Editor for Features and Religion, winning Royal Television Society Awards in both genres, before returning to the BBC in 1999 as Head of the Independent Commissioning Group, responsible for all of the BBC's independent programming. In 2000 He was back commissioning at Channel 4 where among other things he took charge of Big Brother. In 2004 he moved to the internet as Editorial Director for Yahoo Europe, where he overhauled all that portal's content operations, and then returned to television a year later as Controller for Science for Channel Five.

When ambitious young documentary film-maker Nick witnesses the death of a notorious arms dealer in Sri Lanka, he's lucky to escape with his own life. He was on his way to interview him on his yacht when it was blown to smithereens. But the head injuries he receives destroy his memory - and his burgeoning career. Years later, working as a film archivist, he uncovers an image in a forgotten reel of film that seems to totally rewrite the incident that derailed his life. But as he starts to search for the other pieces of the puzzle, he quickly realizes that this single, explosive piece of film could destroy him all over again. Soon he's on the run from people who want the lid put very firmly back on the past. His only option is to restore his memory - however painful it turns out to be - and find the whole truth before it kills him.