Thrillers: Double Dealings and Cover Ups

Allan Massie had a titbit of literary gossip for us in his review of PANTHEON by Sam Bourne:

SAM Bourne is the pseudonym of the distinguished Guardian journalist Jonathan Freedland, and thereby hangs a tale. When his first thriller, The Righteous Men, was published in 2006, the review commissioned by the Guardian was spiked.

According to Private Eye, the literary editor took it to the editor who consulted Mr Freedland, who … well, you can guess what. As it happened the rejected reviewer was none other than Michael Dibdin, author of the splendid Aurelio Zen crime novels who, perhaps a bit miffed, took it to the Times, which happily published it. So the bad review appeared after all, and Mr Freedland looked a bit of an ass.

Read all reviews here and guess which ones have been vetted by Freedland.

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