The Helpers by S.E. Nelson: book reviews

The Helpers: An International Tale of Espionage and Corruption (2010) is set in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) in contemporary times.

This is a fictional story. An underground rebel organization in the DRC called The Helpers consists of international business people and high priests that aim to control the country’s natural resources.

In the French Embassy in the DRC for the past two years, Captain Pierre-Jean Philippe and his boss, French Intelligence Officer Monsieur Lance Lemand, investigate The Helpers.

At the same time, American journalist Jenny Osborne and well-known photojournalist John Spencer, working for the World Broadcasting Corporation (WBC), are sent to Kinshasa to report on the rebel group. Fourteen-year-old school girl Kai passes secret information about The Helpers to Jenny. The Helpers discover that Jenny is going to expose the group and set out to stop her – permanently.

It’s a race against The Helpers and time. But who are the secret key individuals in The Helpers?

Jenny needs to stop The Helpers. The only way for Jenny to remain safe while she is on the run, is to seek help from John, whom she is falling in love with, as well passing on critical information to Lance and Pierre-Jean, but they are hard to reach.

As with espionage and spy novels, this book is full of codes and code names, spies, secrets, politicians, businessmen, UN agencies, soldiers, humanitarian groups, mistresses, assassinations, a cast of characters, disguises, and plot twists.

The dialogue is weak, and the main characters are not well-developed, but the story-line is reasonably well-paced to the end.

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MARTINA NICOLLS

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MARTINA NICOLLS is an international aid and development consultant, and the author of: The Paris Residences of James Joyce (2020), Similar But Different in the Animal Kingdom (2017), The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).

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