Gerald Seymour - A Deniable Death

Rating: 5/5

Review:
An extraordinary thriller

In the end I was utterly gripped by this extraordinary thriller. It has a slow, meticulously developed beginning which gradually reeled me in and left me quite unable to put it down for the last hundred pages or so.

The story is of an intelligence operation to attempt discover where a key Iraqi bomb-maker is travelling to for medical help for his wife, and there to kill him. Seymour's research is exceptionally detailed into all aspects of the operation, and he gives us the minutiae of the intelligence work and of the characters of those involved. I found myself thoroughly involved with many of the characters, even though many aren't all that likeable. Seymour really manages to put us in the position of the people involved and to help us understand their difficulties, fear and suffering, and the slow racking up of tension, particularly during the second half of the book, is quite masterly. (Do be aware that there are some shockingly grisly scenes. They are absolutely justified and an integral part of the narrative, but some readers may wish to be warned.)

The book does have its flaws. Generally the detail and character develoment is very successful, but I found the character stuff a little much at times: there are quite a number of key players, including the target and his wife, and Seymour gives us significant accounts of the lives and motivations of many of them. All this, plus the sheer weight of operational detail, began to drag the book down a bit around page 150, and I thought a bit of judicious editing would have helped. There is some rather heavy-handed moralising in places, too, and one speech in particular read less like spontaneous angry whisperings in a hideously uncomfortable observation hide and more like a carefully prepared address to a political rally.

Nevertheless, after finishing the book I was left with the sensation that I had been through something truly memorable, so in spite of some minor reservations this is highly recommended as an intelligent, absorbing read and, in the end, an exceptionally exciting and involving thriller.