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Henry Porter
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Empire State Hardcover – January 1, 2003

by Henry Porter (Author)
4.3 4.3 out of 5 stars 805 ratings
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The head of the US National Security Agency is assassinated in a spectactular set-piece killing at Heathrow. A Pakistani employee at the airport and his family are found murdered in their council house in Uxbridge. In New York, a fashionable Upper East Side osteopath, who's treating Robert Harland, receives two postcards of the Empire State Building from someone called Karim Khan, one posted in Turkey, the other Iran. A group of migrant workers, including Khan, en route from Afghanistan to the EU, is brutally gunned down in Macedonia. Khan escapes death, but is captured to endure worse - terrible torture. The quest to find the link between these apparently random events is pursued by Harland, with the help of Isis Hernick, a young female officer of MI6, in a remarkable thriller that explores our frightening post 9/11 world. It is a world that inspires paranoia on a grand scale, where international agencies give no quarter and show no scruple in hunting down supposed terrorists, and where torture is used by democratic societies who cite defence as the justification for their acts.
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  1. Book 2 of 3
    Robert Harland
  2. Print length
    416 pages
  3. Language
    English
  4. Publisher
    Orion Publishing
  5. Publication date
    January 1, 2003
  6. Dimensions
    6.02 x 1.73 x 9.21 inches
  7. ISBN-10
    0752856839
  8. ISBN-13
    978-0752856834
  9. See all details
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Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Orion Publishing; First Edition (January 1, 2003)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 416 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0752856839
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0752856834
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.7 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.02 x 1.73 x 9.21 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.3 4.3 out of 5 stars 805 ratings

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Henry Porter

Henry Porter

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Customer reviews

4.3 out of 5 stars
4.3 out of 5
805 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Little Library on the Plains
5.0 out of 5 stars Empire State by Henry Porter
Reviewed in the United States on December 23, 2009
This item was received on time in great condition. Thank you for your prompt service.
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Amazon Customer
4.0 out of 5 stars Complex and Intelligent: not aimed at the Lowest common Denominator
Reviewed in the United States on June 11, 2012
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A good read and full of the internecine (and very real) politics of security agencies; and their lack of trust of each other. A good woman lead as a middle level intelligence officer, with good obervation and analysis, and suffered the reality of stress unlike many other fiction 'heros'. This book is not a 'shoot em up with untarnished heros and it does not shy away from the nastier side of rendition and torture cotracting by the CIA.
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judith marshall
3.0 out of 5 stars very complicated plot
Reviewed in the United States on January 28, 2021
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interesting main characters; subordinate characters not believable and convoluted plot - not his best thriller
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Kindle Customer
4.0 out of 5 stars Four Stars
Reviewed in the United States on October 14, 2014
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Thrilling experience.
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L.C. Brown
4.0 out of 5 stars Fast-paced but a tad confusing
Reviewed in the United States on October 15, 2020
Good Muslim terrorist thriller. A page turner. Yet too many characters to keep track of between all the agencies and all the suspects.
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SR
3.0 out of 5 stars Espionage, terrorism and counterterrorism
Reviewed in the United States on August 21, 2022
#Empire State #Henry Porter #HighBridge #GrovePress #NetGalley

This is a tale of espionage, terrorism, and counterterrorism. Robert Harland and Isis Herrick with MI6 need to figure out what links the murders of the head of NSA at Heathrow, a family at Uxbridge, and a group of refugees in Macedonia.

It is something entirely plausible and is a sign of the times we live in.

This ALC was an interesting listen. Matthew Lloyd Davis narrates the story well.
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Michael Olson
1.0 out of 5 stars Not in the Same League
Reviewed in the United States on December 11, 2003
Empire State is a dreadful book - devoid of suspense, with a muddled plot and a cast of cardboard characters who communicate chiefly via cell-phones and laptop computers. Instead of compelling action, we are subjected to endless exposition describing foreign intrigues, whose significance the reader can only guess at. Even the connection between the opening attack and the events that follow is unclear. What did it accomplish? Was it a diversion? Who done it? You got me.
According to the cover blurb, Robert Harland, the hero of A Spy's Life, returns in Empire State, assisted by female MI6 officer, Isis Herrick. In fact, Herrick is clearly the center of this novel, whereas Harland, relegated to infrequent walk-on's, is hobbled throughout by indecision and chronic back pain. As for the book's sole romantic encounter, it is a tepid interlude, over before it begins. I guess even spies grow old.
If Empire State is "an espionage thriller for the new millennium", then give me back the cold war. In Mr. Porter's brave new world, the Americans and the Brits are ever at each other's throats, the bad guys' intentions are murky at best and the confusing array of British Intelligence Services (SIS, MI5, MI6, etc.) persist in wasting their time in-fighting.
I recently reread Porter's first book, Remembrance Day. Now there was a real thriller: suspense and action galore, good locales, minimal gadgetry, believable protagonists and very nasty villains. A Spy's Life was a notable come-down from that book, and Empire State is not in the same league at all.
9 people found this helpful
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Craobh Rua
3.0 out of 5 stars Blah
Reviewed in the United States on May 29, 2009
"Empire State" opens with Vice Admiral Ralph Norquist, the head of the American NSA, landing at London Heathrow under the name "Larry Catuzo". Norquist is apparently travelling on a secret mission, with his schedule so classified that even his wife doesn't know where he is or who he'll be meeting. Unfortunately, despite the secrecy, the `bad guys' are onto him...Norquist is plucked out of his line on arrival by Peter Chambers, an agent from MI5, who informs him his security has been compromised. Despite their best efforts, however, Norquist doesn't survive too much further...while he makes it out of the airport by a secret escape route, an ambush on the motorway ensures he doesn't see it through the night. Naturally, this is big news - and the obvious assumption is that Norquist was the target of an extremely well-informed terrorist cell. One line of enquiry will look at a woman who'd been ahead of Norquist in the queue coming through immigration. Something about her had made Norquist suspicious and, after she'd dropped the contents of her bag, he had managed to swipe the SIM card from her phone.

One of the book's two lead characters in working at Heathrow at the time - though she's not part of the Norquist operation. Isis Herrick - an Arabic speaking MI5 officer - was working with several MI5 and Special Branch officers, observing Youssef Rahe, an Arab bookseller. (However, before long, all but Isis have been removed from the operation - the Norquist situation and the mysterious woman who "lost" her SIM card needed numbers quickly). Rahe, who was heading to Kuwait, isn't seen as a significant player. In all honesty, the security forces didn't even know if he was an insignificant player...all they know is that a suspect once bought a book from him. Alone, Isis keeps following the Rahe case and, on the CCTV footage, notices that someone else takes Rahe's place on the plane. (It was someone wearing Rahe's jacket, with Rahe's passport and boarding card...but it wasn't Rahe. Somehow or other, the switch had been made where the security cameras couldn't see). A little more poking about, and Herrick soon realises that something very big has happened at the airport that day....something that could easily have been missed due to a high profile murder. (The book's other lead character arrives late at the party. Robert Harland, who is currently working with the United Nations in New York, has a bad back. Thankfully, the Secretary General has managed to get him an appointment with a very highly-regarded doctor called Sammi Loz...)

Meanwhile, in Macedonia about 10 miles from the Albanian border, a group of travellers are breaking camp breaking up after a night's rest. There's little doubt that a number of the travellers have a shady past...Karim Khan, for example, has spent several years fighting as a Mujahad in Afghanistan. However, while his belief in Allah remains strong, his belief in sacrifice has waned. He now hopes to make his way to Greece and return to the life he once led. Unfortunately, the group of travellers run into a border control...and only Khan makes it out of the encounter alive.

An easily read book overall, and one that doesn't avoid dealing with extraordinary rendition and torture. (Those who argued in favour this approach included a couple of goons - officially guardians of freedom, truth and justice, no less - who seemed to take great pleasure in that line of work; Herrick, it seems, was there to provide the counter-argument). Khan, I'd imagine, wasn't quite the monster some would have preferred...though, having said that, he wasn't an entirely believable character. Isis proved to be a likeable character - more so than Harland, I thought, and proved to be someone that you couldn't help rooting for. However, I do think both she and the book were badly let down by the climax and the closing scene - Porter would have done better to have come up with a significantly different ending.
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Top reviews from other countries

John W. Dow
5.0 out of 5 stars Great Read
Reviewed in Canada on November 21, 2020
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A great read recommend this to anyone the author has several other books and I will be ordering another in the series soon
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N A Griffin
5.0 out of 5 stars Great spy stories!
Reviewed in Australia on November 13, 2021
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Arrived well packaged. Looking forward to this story from a newly discovered author I am really enjoying!
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onlyolney
5.0 out of 5 stars A really believable conspiracy novel - a 1984 for 2010
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on March 26, 2010
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As with other Henry Porter thrillers, this is well written, crisp and pacy, and hard to put down. But this is much, much more frightening than his earlier books.

Based on recent technological developments, it poses the notion that a corrupt and corrupted government can - and most likely will - invade our privacy and manipulate us for its own political ends.

When I started to read the book, it seemed that some of the surveillance technology described and in existence was only ever likely to be used by spooks or in war - spy drones, co-ordidated access to all our on-line or electronic transactions, segregation of aliens etc.

But the horrors depicted became fact even as I read the book. Spy drones are now being deployed in the West Country, and the proposal to put everyone's health records on a data base, and later, that all our interactions with goverment should be electronic and an electronic profile obtained, is now a reality.

What will be next? On-line voting, so that exercising our democratic freedoms become, in reality, just another means of the government controlling our every thought, belief and action?

This book depicts in clear, readable, and horrifying clarity, what has begun to happen to this nation. If the technology is there, a corrupt government will use it to control us. George Orwell was right, and so is Henry Porter.

What we need now is concerted campaign to make sure the tide is turned back and we can reclaim our ancient freedoms.
4 people found this helpful
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JONNO WILSON
4.0 out of 5 stars An interesting evolution
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 8, 2022
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The second book in the Robert Harland series doesn't actually take him a great deal. Some new characters are introduced with great stories. But while this is a fun yarn, there is little real surprise or suspense.
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Peter G. Brewster
4.0 out of 5 stars Great read
Reviewed in Canada on June 11, 2020
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More good stuff from Henry Porter.
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