Author: Ian Hernon
ISBN No: 9780 745327150
Review date: 14/04/2026
No of pages: 272
Publisher: Pluto Press
Year of publication: 11/09/2012
Brief:
Assassin! does a service by reminding us that there is a long history of attempts against political and other British figures.
The author, political journalist Ian Hernon, was on the scene at the Brighton bomb at the 1984 Tory party conference, and the 1979 murder of the Tory MP Airey Neave. So itโs fine as a source for students of historical plots and shootings, and insights. For example, some attempts on the life of Queen Victoria were early cases of the โcelebrity assassinโ – in an age before TV, few other faces were known. However some material seems there for the sake of filling pages. Hernon does not get to the bottom of why the assassins do it, reasons ranging from political ideology to mental instability, and in the case of 1812 Prime Minister Spencer Perceval, a businessman with a grievance over debts. The loner, terrorist and suicide bomber thrive on democracyโs over-reaction, Hernon argues.
