Secret trilogy
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The Secret trilogy is a crime fiction series written by Rafe McGregor, The Secret Policeman, The Secret Service, and The Secret Agent. The series follows Inspector Jackson, a South African policeman, from his work against PAGAD, to his career in the South African Secret Service, and his subsequent recruitment by the Metropolitan Police Special Branch and the CIA.
Jackson was born in Stellenbosch in 1968. He joined the South African Police in 1987, aged nineteen, and was posted to Cape Town. Ten years later he was an inspector in the Crime Intelligence Service, based in Durban. Following the events described in The Secret Policeman he returned to Cape Town, where he investigated the Planet Hollywood restaurant bombing in August 1998. At the end of 1999 he arrested several Triad and PAGAD suspects involved in organised crime.
Jackson joined the SASS as an intelligence officer in 2000, and was posted to South Africa House in London. Immediately after the September 11, 2001, attacks he was dispatched to Boston, Massachusetts, where he joined the FBI JTTF. During his two years with the JTTF he was involved in the arrests of Richard Reid (terrorist) and David Geoghan. Thereafter, Jackson was recalled to Pretoria and married Lynley Watson, an architect from Boston, Massachusetts, in Saint Thomas, US Virgin Isles. He was assigned VIP Protection duties at the South African Embassy in Dublin in 2004, where he remained until his resignation from the SASS a year later.
Jackson and his wife immigrated to the United Kingdom, where they live in Buxton, Derbyshire.
[edit] The Secret Policeman
The Secret Policeman is a police procedural detective mystery set in Durban in 1997. Although a work of fiction, the novella uses a mixture of real and fictional characters and events.
From the publisher, Classic Mysteries: Durban, 1997: Superintendent Baston of the Security Branch is stabbed to death in a police safe-house. Seven days later the city’s top detective, Jack Forrester, is assigned the case. From the moment he meets Inspector Jackson, his Security Branch liaison, he knows vital facts are being kept from him and that his every move is being watched. Despite Jackson’s interference, Forrester picks up a trail from drug traffickers to a disbanded terrorist army, the bodies of two more policemen, and the discovery of a connection between Moslem vigilantes and a sinister, international terrorist network. As each piece of the puzzle brings him closer to the truth, he must trust no one and question everything. Forrester arrests a suspect, only to realise he’s become the unwitting victim of both Jackson and the terrorists. His choice: escape, or fall victim to a wave of terror which will lead to more than a hundred bombs being detonated in the garden city of Cape Town and, ultimately, the horror of September 11.
[edit] The Secret Service
The Secret Service is a fast-paced espionage thriller about a CIA-sponsored attempt to rid Western Europe of al-Qaeda sleepers.
From the author at Amazon.com Shorts:
Part 1: I came across a reference to the Stasi - the East German State Security Police - which caught my interest as I still have vivid memories of the Cold War. I read more about the organization, and was amazed to learn that it had been in many ways a more comprehensive and successful instrument of repression than either the Gestapo or the KGB. When further research revealed the Stasi had trained both PLO and uMkhonto we Sizwe guerillas, I knew its reign of terror was about to reach into the 21st century…
Part 2: …With the plot taking care of itself, I needed a protagonist. Jackson, my postmodern Quatermain, proved the ideal candidate. Not only did he have the right connections in the Secret Service, but he was also tough enough to take on Operation Condor. Perhaps even more importantly, he had a brother-in-law who was a colonel in the US Marine Corps. Everything fell into place and for the final chapter I couldn't resist a humble tribute to John Buchan, who perfected the espionage novella more than ninety years ago.
[edit] The Secret Agent
The Secret Agent is an action-packed crime thriller pitting Special Branch against the Kernow Republic Brigade and the Real IRA.
From the author at Amazon.com Shorts: I wanted to create a character in the mould of great action heroes like Allan Quatermain, Rudolf Rassendyll, and Richard Hannay, but somehow make him relevant to the postmodern world. I originally intended Jackson as the link in a trilogy of novellas, but two novellas and four short stories later, I've begun work on a novel. The 7/7 London bombings occurred shortly after I finished the first draft of The Secret Agent, and neither I - nor Jackson's Special Branch handlers - could ignore the impact of the horrific attack.
