Kindling: A British Espionage Thriller

Britain is angry. Someone is making sure it stays that way.When a series of protests, leaks and online claims begins to erupt across the country, MI5 investigator Leah Qureshi sees more than unrest. The timing is too precise. The language repeats. The same pressure points keep being hit.KINDLING - KDP SummarySome fires are started long before anyone sees them.When British intelligence officer Daniel Reed's long-term source fails to appear at a meeting in Riga, the warning he leaves behind is both cryptic and disturbing: The tinder is domestic.Back in Britain, domestic-security investigator Leah Qureshi is confronting a different problem. Genuine public anger is spreading around government secrecy, immigration policy and local decision-making. Demonstrations are growing. Confidential material is appearing in the hands of campaigners. Authentic documents are being released at precisely the moments they can cause the greatest damage.Much of what people are angry about is real.That is exactly what makes it dangerous.As Reed and Qureshi begin connecting apparently unrelated events, they uncover something more sophisticated than conventional propaganda. Someone is not inventing Britain's divisions. They are identifying them, feeding them and manipulating the timing of real information until legitimate disagreement becomes institutional paralysis.Campaigner Tom Kershaw believes he is exposing what government would rather keep hidden. Senior politician Sir Adrian Vale believes the decisions he makes are entirely his own. Behind both sits a network designed to ensure that nobody needs to knowingly work for Moscow to become useful to it.The objective is not revolution.It is hesitation.Because if Britain can be forced to doubt its institutions, its information and eventually itself, crucial decisions can be delayed without a shot being fired.And as Reed closes in on the operation, a decision in Riga forces him to confront the human cost of intelligence work-and a choice he may never be able to undo.KINDLING is the first novel in The Reed & Qureshi Espionage Thrillers - a contemporary British spy thriller about hostile-state influence, political pressure, disinformation and the dangerous power of turning genuine grievances into weapons.