THE GLORY BOYS - Book review

Gerald Seymour’s The Glory Boys, published in 1976, was his second novel and is sadly still topical today. The Palestine Liberation Organisation has despatched three men to London to kill David Sokarev, an Israeli nuclear scientist who is visiting to give a lecture. The PLO’s purpose is to make a statement and instil fear. Two of the men are intercepted by Israeli Intelligence; only one, Abd-El-Famy, escapes.

Famy is untried but determined to continue with the assassination attempt: ‘... his enemy, tired now, outdated, unable to compete in the new and modern world that he was seeking, unable to comprehend the hitting power of the Palestinian movement, unable to defend itself against the new philosophy of revolution and attack’ (p67).

As planned, Famy obtains the assistance of McCoy, a Provisional IRA killer, who is to supply the weapons.

Alerted that there was a third PLO man hell-bent on assassination, the Security Service attempts to locate the Arab before he can fulfil his mission, and surprisingly they use an old drunk, Jimmy, as the trigger-man; indeed, he may like his tipple too much, but he was a damned good shot and a cold-blooded experienced killer.

A tense man-hunt is under way, involving several innocent women as well.

 

Even though the world has moved on since this book was written, becoming more hi-tech, there’s no denying the narrative power of Seymour’s story. As ever, he gets into the skin of the protagonists and it reads like it really happened and it still grips the reader.

HARRY'S GAME - book review

 

Gerald Seymour’s debut novel Harry’s Game (1975) hit the ground running. It’s an accomplished piece of work for a first novel and established him as a top rank thriller writer, and he has yet to disappoint me – though some of his books have a downbeat ending – a reflection of life, of course, though I prefer my fiction to end upbeat.

It’s contemporary – 1974. A British minister is cold-bloodedly shot down in the street in plain view of his children and wife, and the IRA perpetrator gets away. The PM decides that rather than use the regular forces in the mainland and in Northern Ireland, he wants a man-hunter unaffiliated to any official organisation. Of several candidates available, Captain Harry James Brown is selected, flown back from Germany and undergoes three weeks training in Dorset before being sent to Belfast where he is to blend in and attempt to track the shooter and either arrange for his capture or death.

The shooter is Billy Downs. For no good reason Seymour refers to him as ‘the man’ for a considerable chunk of the book. Downs is married with children.

Seymour brings a mass of knowledge and detail concerning the IRA hierarchy, ‘the troubles’, the army in place, and the citizens on both sides of the religious divide. At the time the IRA has suffered several setbacks, with a number of leaders imprisoned, and now rules through fear in order to deter informers. This aspect is conveyed very well indeed.

To a certain extent, Harry views his tracking of Downs similar to a game of chess: some pawns – unsuspecting innocents – might be sacrificed, but the end result is justified. He has no qualms about eliminating a cold-blooded murderer. The danger is real, however: if he is caught by the IRA, he will be tortured and killed – and prove an embarrassment to the British government. Tension builds up to the end of the book.

Cold. Clinical. Thrilling.

THE HEART OF DANGER - Book review

 

Gerald Seymour’s 1995 novel is another one of his authentic thrillers touching upon a gut-wrenching contemporary issue – this time, the Bosnian conflict.

Seymour uses a framing device – an SIS official is reviewing a particular file of events that occurred a couple of years earlier, in 1993. Bill Penn, an MI5 agent who was dismissed, now works as a private investigator – mainly chasing debts and errant husbands and wives. Then he is hired by Mary Braddock. Her daughter Dorrie went missing in 1991 and her body has just been exhumed from a field’s mass grave in former Yugoslovia. Mrs Braddock wants to know how and why Dorrie died.

What begins as a lucrative easy task develops into something darker and more meaningful and moving. Gradually, Penn gets to know the late Dorrie through witness statements. Dorrie’s mother had despaired of her daughter; they’d constantly been at loggerheads. Yet this wasn’t the young woman Penn learned about.

‘It’s always the people who are smug and complacent who send young men across rivers, through minefields, into the heart of danger, and in their arrogance they never pause to consider the consequences.’ (p322)

Despite official censure, Penn goes behind enemy lines in a bid to not only to seek the truth about Dorrie’s brutal death but also to bring to justice the person responsible.

This is a grim tale, with the raw background of a dirty little war that featured genocide and ethnic cleansing. Towards the end it gets extremely tense and harrowing.

Heart-breaking in many instances.

Editorial comment:

Penn uses a mercenary called Ham as a helper. What’s interesting is that Seymour uses an ex-special forces character called Ham in his 2003 thriller Traitor’s Kiss; and not the same guy!

 

TRAITOR'S KISS - Book review

 

It’s a few years since I’ve read any Gerald Seymour thrillers; I’ve had Traitor’s Kiss on my shelf since 2004, its date of paperback publication (originally published 2003). I have yet to be disappointed in one of his novels, and I’m happy to write that this is no exception. Even when some feature a downbeat ending, I’ve appreciated the storytelling, the research, the characters and the honesty in the writing.

It begins in 1998 when a Russian officer hands over a wad of secret papers to a British trawlerman in the port of Murmansk. The papers are delivered to SIS operative Rupert Mowbray; genuine details from Captain Viktor Alexander Archenko, Russian Navy.

Some five years later, a dead drop by the Archenko doesn’t happen. The SIS handlers fear the worst: their contact is blown. But Archenko isn’t, though he has detected security men shadowing him. So begins a race against time – before the net closes in on a useful asset.

Some in the higher echelons of SIS consider the asset is a lost cause. But this goes against Mowbray’s sense of honour: he wants to organise an operation to get Archenko out.

As the Mission Impossible team is unavailable, Mowbray seeks the help of ex-SAS men – Billy, Lofty, Wickso and Ham – to extract Archenko from under the noses of the Russians. Closing in on Archenko is Lieutenant Colonel Yuri Bikov, an experienced interrogator.

At just over 500 pages, this tense thriller is a fast page-turner, all of it believable. Helping Mowbray is Alice, who was at the first clandestine meeting with Archenko all those years ago. She’d fallen in love with him and was now with Mowbray and the extraction team heading for Kaliningrad. All the familiar tropes are here – intelligence hardware, tradecraft, weapons, insider knowledge of the Russian naval system, soul sapping suspense of constantly being aware of being a traitor, the justification for the deceit, the bravery and heroism of the various protagonists.

Highly recommended.

Book review - In Honour Bound

Gerald Seymour writes about contemporary issues and this one is no exception, being published in 1984 at the height of the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan.This version is 'tenth impression with a new cover, 1990'.

SAS Captain Barney Crispin is meant to train Afghans to deploy Redeye rockets against a Soviet killer Mi-24 helicopter, with the intention of bringing back to the UK secret parts of the crippled craft.  Sadly, their mission goes catastrophically wrong and the guerrillas are killed. Driven by guilt and bloody-mindedness, Barney determines to disobey orders and infiltrate Afghanistan and do the job himself – with the aid of Gul Bahdur, a teenage Afghan boy as guide, and a couple of donkeys. This foray into danger is well told, so we can feel the privations suffered by Barney – and the Afghans he meets.

In parallel with his mission is the dilemma of the Soviet commander in charge of the Mi-24s, Major Pyotr Medev, who is tasked with clearing out the Afghan villages without losing any craft. So far, he’s managed this (and thousands of refugees in Iran and Pakistan attest to it): until one of his aircraft is shot out of the sky…

Another protagonist is Italian nurse Mia Fiori who spends her leave helping the guerrillas in the Panjshir Valley. Unfortunately, this time around she is baulked before she can get there…

Lastly, there’s disenchanted ex-sergeant Schumack, a soldier of fortune who is intent on fighting for the Afghan cause until he dies.

Their paths will cross and they will be in great danger. Pressure pushes Barney to use his Redeye missiles to down a helicopter and retrieve the vital parts before the snows block off half the country. He only has eight missiles. He is begrudgingly accepted by the Afghan fighters, though he has to walk a knife-edge between total rejection and death at their hands.  It’s a battle of wills and wits, leading to a tense showdown.

Research and detail piled on detail lend credence to the story. We feel we were there, in the Soviet airbase at Begram, the dangerous streets of Kabul, the treacherous mountains and passes of Afghanistan.

Seymour never disappoints, though I sometimes feel he unfairly condemns his heroes and heroines in the final stages. I won’t say what happens to the hero of this one; it’s worth reading to find out!

FFB - The Unknown Soldier

This was published in 2005 and was Gerald Seymour’s twenty-second thriller and it’s up there with his best, though my favourite is still Archangel, a moving story about a man’s doomed yet glorious fight against the authorities in a Russian Gulag. 

As ever, Seymour was up-to-date with the world’s headlines at the time of writing.  The story begins in Afghanistan while various followers of Al Qaeda are being ‘mopped-up’. 

There’s an interesting mix of characters whose lives are going to converge - and every one of them is believable, as are the subordinate characters, whether Arab, Israeli or American; a sure sign of thriller-writing of the highest order.

Caleb seems to have denied any past beyond two years ago.  He survives an American ambush and is shipped off to Guantanamo Bay for processing; yet he doesn’t seem to be a terrorist and after many months of interrogation he’s returned to Afghanistan ...

Marty and Lizzy-Jo are two young Agency whizz-kids who fly the unmanned spy-planes, the Predators; they’re being shipped out to Saudi Arabia.

Here already is Beth Jenkins, a school-teacher and amateur meteorologist and Bart, a doctor with a distinctly shady past, who happens to be one of several spies garnering any titbits for Eddie Wroughton, the Saudi MI6 man.

Back in London is Lovejoy, an old spy, who sits through briefings to understand the psychology of today’s terrorists: the men Al Qaeda want to recruit for their dirty work are not loners, they want men who are tough, persistent, determined and bright.

Jed Dietrich is an interrogator in Guantanamo; while he was on vacation, Agency know-alls let Caleb go.  On his return, he managed to unmask Caleb as a liar - too late, the man had beaten them all... 

The manhunt was on for someone wily enough to bide his time and beat the interrogators.  Someone Al Qaeda would like to use, probably as a mule to deliver a lethal package to any city in the West...

‘The explosion would cause thirty injured and three deaths, but unseen in the air heated by the detonation and moved on the wind - particles of caesium chloride...’  The fear of a dirty bomb.  Panic would ensue.  And the creation of panic is the terrorist’s principal aim.

Inner cities would be abandoned.  ‘The panic caused would initiate a new Dark Age.’

The manhunt leads to the Empty Quarter - sand dunes and shallow mountains that cover a quarter of a million square miles of emptiness.  And through the fire of the sun’s unrelenting heat is a caravan with Caleb getting nearer to Al Qaeda and an appointment with immortal fame.

Unless he can be stopped.  Thoroughly researched, Caleb’s journey becomes your journey and you can’t help rooting for this brave young man who seems determined to blot out pain and other emotions just to reach his goal.