Forbidden Island

This novel is rooted in fact. During the Second World War the Scottish island of Gruinard was used by the British government for experiments to develop the lethal illness of anthrax for use as a biological weapon against Germany. The war ended before Churchill could order an attack with anthrax spores, and thereafter the infected island was quarantined for decades until it was finally decontaminated in the 1980s.

Rose’s novel asks us to accept two sinister extensions from this factual base: first, that a new strain of anthrax was developed which does not require contact with a contaminated source but spreads from person to person, and second that the British government can effectively screen out the fictional equivalent of Gruinard by removing it from all maps, blocking satellite signals, and hiding it for decades from inquisitive coastal shipping. If you can accept all that for the purpose of the story, then what happens when five teenagers come across it on a pleasure trip in the family cruiser is the starting point for a deadly variation on the classical ‘island adventure’ story.

Exploring the island, the teenagers begin to fall victim to the anthrax strain. Their presence becomes known to the security services. To protect the population at large from infection, their boat is destroyed by the RAF and they are left to their fate, while news stories are manufactured to explain their disappearance. Every effort they make to survive and escape is blocked by government forces. Only a piece of brilliant ingenuity allows the media to be alerted and some – not all – of them to recover and live.

This compact, tense and gripping story begins like an adventure for readers of eleven or so, but its serious political themes, moral dilemmas and physical outcomes make it best suited to a teenage readership. Although the cause of the danger lies 70 years ago, it is the behaviour of present-day security services and the government which drives the story, and makes it highly topical in a society where the balance between national security and individual rights and freedoms is a living issue. Forbidden Island is a very good thriller, fast-moving and highly readable. It is also a thoughtful and effective parable of modern Britain.