Insiders 4 and 5: Najah’s Journey

Insiders 4: Takeover Bid on the Kremlin
Insiders 5: Destination Gulag
Written by Jean-Claude Bartoll, illustrated by Renaud Garreta, Cinebook, £6.99/$11.95

♦ The Insiders series is devoted to the kind of thriller/realpolitik subject matter that is the bread-and-butter of thriller writers everywhere, but that very rarely makes it into comic book form outside of mainland Europe.

The basic “McGuffin” of Insiders is a shadowy international conspiracy of businessmen politicians and financiers who form a worldwide Mafia, a large-scale criminal enterprise hidden beneath the legal facade. To combat this threat to democracy (!), the Americans decide to use a secret weapon – Najah! Najah , a heroine of the Chechen resistance, has become disgusted by the religious intolerance displayed by their leader. Her disgust coincides handily with her being promptly kidnapped by people working for Dick Matthews, an ex-CIA operative commissioned by the White House to set up “Project Insider.” Najah, who is in reality Isabel Mendoza, a woman living under the threat of an international warrant, is coerced into becoming an “insider” – an operative who will infiltrate the cartel and become the right arm of one of the secret bosses.

Jean-Claude Bartoli is an investigative journalist, a filmmaker, and screenwriter, and certainly has the past and the chops to write this material. Each book begins with quotes from various politicians about the infiltration of organised crime into the wider economy, and the stories themselves have a similar reportage-styled approach to the subject. The story flow from book to book is continuous, so Takeover Bid on the Kremlin ends at the point where Destination Gulag begins.

In Takeover Bid on the Kremlin, Najah is in Moscow with her boss, Sam Nachez, to continue her mission to identify the heads of organised crime. Danger lurks at every turn: some still suspect her, her past as a Chechen guerrilla may catch up with her, and frankly Russia just isn’t the nicest place on earth for an ex Chechen guerrilla turned American spy. Prominent businessman Boris Berezkov, allegedly the wealthiest oligarch in Russia, has founded a new political party “New Russia”, and when his candidate for President is assassinated Najah is there at his side, ready to help. From here on in it’s a downhill slalom of action, in the style of the Bourne films, rather than the Bond ones. Garretta’s art is clear and realistic, if sometimes slightly static, but expresses subject matter that might be hard to take with a more expressive style very well indeed. There were rumours that Insiders might be picked up for US movie treatment with Jessica Alba’s name being put forward as a possibility for the role of Najah. Though little has been heard on the movie front, you can see how the series would make a very effective movie franchise.

Not to give anything away about the ending of Takeover Bid on the Kremlin, but by Destination Gulag Najah is in a… Yeah, you guessed it. No spoilers, let’s just say the previous episode didn’t end well for Najah. In Destination Gulag,

we learn a lot more about Najah’s past, shown in flashbacks as she tries to survive in the Gulag. Russia’s FSB agency wants to deputise her to spy on New Russia’s political campaign, but Najah, unsurprisingly, lacks enthusiasm for being co-opted by yet another suspect security agency. Najah’s struggle in the camp forms a backdrop to yet another bunch of geopolitical corruption and hi-jinks, leading to a spectacular escape, and ending with a surprise discovery in Washington DC.

Najah will return in The Hawkes of Beijing…

Peter Mann

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