| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 Trade In this Item for up to £0.25
Trade in Avenger for an Amazon.co.uk gift card of up to £0.25, which you can then spend on millions of items across the site. Plus, get an extra £5 when you trade in books worth £10 or more until June 30, 2012. Trade-in values may vary (terms apply). Find more products eligible for trade-in.
|
Frequently Bought Together
Product details
|
More About the Author
Product Description
Amazon.co.uk Review
The avenger is Calvin Dexter, outwardly a small-town US lawyer, who was shaped into a formidable killing machine by Vietnam. There are horrific flashbacks to his war career as a "Tunnel Rat", fighting the Vietcong at close quarters in their own deadly underground labyrinths. After taking the law into his own hands for a bitter personal revenge on a Central American mobster, Dexter hires out his expertise to grab untouchable criminals from safe havens and deliver them into the clutches of US justice.
His latest assignment is the toughest of all. A young American aid worker in fractured Yugoslavia met a revolting death at the hands of an ethnic-cleansing squad led by a Serbian war criminal. The boy's billionaire grandfather can afford an expensive revenge, but the trail seems cold... until, step by step, face-to-face investigation, lucky breaks, unstinting bribery and advanced computer hacking techniques trace the links from Serbia to the United Arab Emirates, a private plane, and a corrupt banana republic where the now very rich villain has the president and secret police on his payroll. Assaulting his massively guarded fortress--whose layers of defence include piranha, attack dogs and sharks deliberately given a taste for blood--would be one hell of a job even if Dexter had surprise on his side. But there are complications in high places. The CIA wants to use that Serbian killer as a stalking-horse in an elaborate operation against Al Qaeda, and issues an urgent warning that the avenger is coming...
Dexter plans an elegant, witty and almost bloodless coup, a sting in the style of Leslie Charteris's Saint rather than a Bond-type frontal assault. With the whole country mobilised against him, though, what chance does he have? Dexter, and Forsyth, may surprise you. The author has a knack for making background information vitally interesting: potted life histories of the characters (including big wheels in the FBI and CIA) are almost as compulsively readable as the major action scenes. Surprises and unmaskings continue until the final pages of this superior thriller. --David Langford --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Mail on Sunday
Tags Customers Associate with This Product(What's this?)Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
|
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
The usage of a main character who was a Vietnam vet involved in the well documented (though ultimately sideshow) "Vietcong tunnel warfare" fighting and a Serbian war crimes background for the main story allows usage of a lot of well known base points then weaved into a good plot. However the upping of the storyline to then encompass Middle East terrorism and a Serbian war criminal who has built a secure fortress in South America and is being manipulated by the CIA gets us into familiar Forsyth territory that this is ultimately an escapist story that makes for a great and easy read on a long trip or holiday but will never stand up to great scrutiny or review.
As the Americans say "Enjoy!"
Similar in basic plot to his earlier book 'The Negotiator', it centres on Cal Dexter's quest to trace an Eastern European war criminal. Whilst the usual components are still present - twists and turns and the usual high level of research in particular - the element of magic is missing from this one. It's as though he needed to pay the mortgage and went to the 'Big Frederick Forsyth Thriller By Numbers' manual, rather than thought up something new and imaginative.
Don't ignore it - you do so at your peril - just don't expect something as good as 'Icon' or 'Fist Of God'.
Although the leading character Cal Dexter is well written and developed the surrounding characters are paper thin and merit better descriptions.
The pursuit is good. As with other Forsyth novels his detail is immaculate. Very carefully constructed.
But the final part of the novel set in a South American banana republic and featuring an assault on a criminal hideout tends towards the James Bond school of fantasy islands and bad guys stroking cats.
The final twist in the plot is ingenious and unexpected.
Raymond Chandler: Farewell My Lovely. Published 1940. Read more
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
|
