Reading Chris Cleave's Incendiary is like receiving a smack in the face

Sadly, my usual 'bare bones' outline/review will not avail you of the power this novel.

But if I don't at least try to convey its spirit, you're probably not going to read it. And if you don't do that, I'm afraid I'm going to feel a bit of a failure.

So, here goes.

When I reviewed Chris Cleave's other great work - The Other Hand - I thought it made me feel horribly guilty and unusually introspective.

Incendiary was even more extreme.

This book is a letter - written by a young unnamed woman in the aftermath of a terrorist attack. So far, so not that special.

But this woman is absorbing because she's so resolutely ordinary. She's also passionately confused, confusingly calm and calmly losing her grip.

This woman endures an event that is unnerving in its portrayal - not least because 1,000 people die but also because it's so horribly possible.

Incendiary was first published on July 5, 2005. Two days later the horror became fact and I suspect that's why it's struggled to achieve the fame it deserves.

Chris Cleave made an uncannily accurate guess that grey, old, house priced obsessed London would become a target and he was right.

The film - which I've yet to see - went pretty much straight to DVD. Most people read novels to escape the horror - and this book was apprently just too close.

But now it's been re-published and this is a good a time to read it.

I said I felt guilty and here's why. I like this book because it attacks the myth that Islam is evil (a view I never held anyway) but more importantly that London is a city of brave cockney sparrows, never putting a foot wrong and supporting one another through turbulent times without the faintest trace of selfishness.

Rubbish. There are no such absolutes.

At one point in this novel there is a bomb scare. In the melee, two men surround a terrified woman in a 4x4. She is hunched and sobbing over the wheel. The men try to break in to the vehicle. When they fail one decides to drop a lit cigarette lighter into her petrol tank.

We see a grieving woman slip through the net - receive no help and eventually lose her widow's pension. We see an establishment act for its own ends and fail to answer questions about what might have prevented a bombing.

One critic said it re-hashed old Islamic stereotypes and reinforced prejudice. I disagree.

Here we see London's citizens and tourists continue to watch reality television and worry about fashion while the country sinks deeper and deeper into a surveillance state.

Our 'hero' goes to the pub, develops a crush on her boss and likes fish fingers.

Can you empathise? There's only one way to find out.

Read the first word, the last word and everything in between.