He engineers events to force the undercover policeman deeper into the confidence of the Russian gangsters to find out exactly what is being planned. An intercepted mobile phone call from a certain town in Russia to a Russian 'businessman' in London rings alarm bells in the headquarters of the British secret service and Christopher Lawson, an old school cold war spy, takes control of an unrelated undercover operation being run by the fraud squad of Scotland Yard on the businessman. ![]() one million dollars (try not saying that in a Doctor Evil voice!). Fifteen years later he digs it up and arranges to sell it to a Russian Mafia boss for the sum of. In the chaos of the end of the Soviet Union, a disgruntled officer at a nuclear weapons decommissioning facility steals a small tactical weapon and buries it in his garden under a sheet of lead. An attempt to "sex up" the book? Covers matter, so come on publishers, don't shortchange your readers and give us an accurate picture of the novel. This doesn't feature in the book at all, so is a bit of a con. The original UK edition has a cover of an exploding car and a man running away. A ten year break has led me to appreciate the author's work afresh. I stopped following Gerald Seymour after "The Unknown Soldier" as I thought they were getting a bit slow & samey. effective here as the focus is on the SS death camp at Sobibor with scenes that will live long in this reader's memory. The author often uses history as a counterpoint to his contemporary tales via diaries or journals. What adds another dimension to this story is the account of Reuven's grandmother's wartime experiences. The book builds tension to a bitter sweet finale that wraps up matters satisfactorily, if a tad disappointing for me. The two old Soviet officers bicker their way across bleak Ukraine & Belarus in a style straight out of Samuel Beckett. There's not a lot of action and the emphasis is on character, plot and a terrific sense of place, born from extensive research (despite knocking on now, the ex ITN journalist sure "puts in the hard yards" when it comes to authentic detail). Seymour's books aren't the fast food thrillers popular nowadays. ![]() The villain of the piece is Jewish criminal Reuven Weissberg, a wholly convincing thug who makes Bill Sykes look warm & cuddly. This leads to a bigger plot involving a nuclear device being transported across Eastern Europe by two disgruntled ex Soviet officers. This has the classic set up of a British undercover police officer infiltrating Russian money launderers in London. Gerald Seymour isn't described as "the world's greatest thriller writer" (Daily Telegraph)without good reason. The book is certainly an exciting page-turner, as well as being very well written and well worth a read. I found one element of the ending disappointing and a bit unrealistic or, rather, out of character for that person, though certainly not unbelievably so, so maybe it is just me. These and other strands gradually come together and the action moves to the forests of the Polish/Russian/Belorussian border for the climax. These include two elderly and cynical Russians who are sick of being exploited by their own government and decide to do something to line their own nests – something dangerous. The main story builds slowly but surely, and we are treated to good characterisations of all the major players, of whom there are several. He narrates her story to himself in sections throughout the book because he knows it off by heart, so we get to hear it, too. When MI6 discover he may be involved in a much more serious matter, the police officer’s role changes, putting him in harm’s way and having to trust on MI6 to get him out of any trouble in which he may find himself.Īnother major character is a gangster and grandson of a Holocaust survivor, whose influence on him was enormous when he was a child. This novel involves an undercover police officer who is keeping an eye (from the inside) on a Russian money launderer living the high life in London. This is another of Gerald Seymour’s excellent espionage thrillers, and it lives up to expectations.
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