The great thriller writer returns to Northern Ireland, the setting of his first novel, Harry’s Game, for this, his thirtieth book. He is ace and once hooked you’ve got lots to indulge in to find your favourite. Here we have a disillusioned army intelligence officer and his trusted side-kick ‘retired’ in Northern France when his ex-MI5 boss needs his particular expertise to expose an Irish deal. It is all very dangerous, very tense and Seymour writes very well indeed.
It was a dirty job in a dirty war. Danny Curnow, known in the army family by his call sign, Vagabond, ran agents, informers. Played God with their lives and their deaths, and was the best at his job - and he quit when the stress overwhelmed him. Now he lives in quiet isolation and works as a guide to tourists visiting the monuments and cemeteries of an earlier, simpler, conflict on Normandy's D-Day beaches. Until the call comes from an old boss, Bentinick. Violence in Northern Ireland is on the rise again. Weapons are needed for a new campaign. Gaby Davies of MI5, sparky and ambitious, runs the double agent Ralph Exton, who will be the supposed middle man in brokering an arms deal with a Russian contact, Timofey. The covert world of deception and betrayal was close to destroying Danny across the Irish Sea. Fifteen years later the stakes are higher, the risks greater, and there is an added agenda on the table. If he wants to survive, Danny will have to prove, to himself, that he has not softened, that he is as hard and ruthless as before.
Gerald Seymour was our Guest Editor in August 2014 - click here - to see the books that inspired his writing.
Gerald Seymour exploded onto the literary scene in 1975 with the massive bestseller HARRY'S GAME. The first major thriller to tackle the modern troubles in Northern Ireland, it was described by Frederick Forsyth as 'like nothing else I have ever read' and it changed the landscape of the British thriller forever.
Gerald Seymour was a reporter at ITN for fifteen years. He covered events in Vietnam, Borneo, Aden, the Munich Olympics, Israel and Northern Ireland. He has been a full-time writer since 1978.
