- Unknown Binding: 84 pages
- Publisher: Maine Agricultural Experiment Station, University of Maine (1991)
- Language English
- ASIN: B0006DM18K
- Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
16 of 16 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
The Unknown Soldier is the latest in a long line of polished and highly intelligent thrillers from Gerald Seymour. This is one of the most topical, dealing with the ongoing threat from Al Qaeda and portrays both the terrorists and those hunting them in a far more personal and insightful manner than most authors are capable of. Seymour’s objective description of the bombing campaign in Afghanistan and the conditions which exist in Guantanamo Bay are also a welcome relief from the biased, flag waving and generally ill informed writings of other western authors.
Exciting as the storyline is, the main strength of this book lies in the development of its characters. In contrast to other authors who choose the easy and simplistic option of having perfect, unblemished heroes battling fundamentally evil villains, Seymour’s characters are far more complex and realistic, depicting the ordinary and fallible human beings who lie behind the headlines in the real world, where characters like James Bond, or Jack Ryan for that matter, are about as far from reality as you are liable to get.
The only question mark I would place over this book is its very ambiguous ending which seems to suggest a sequel may be in the offing. If so, it should be one to look forward to.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
"The Unknown Soldier" is the latest in the long line of superb Gerald Seymour current affairs thrillers. To be perfectly frank I'll a little surprised to see a couple of reviews claiming that this book was below his normal excellent standards and that they found it to be somewhat slow.
It's true that the action isn't breakneck speed with thrills and spills all over the place, but what Seymour can do like no other writer is create a slow pressure build up of tension and then culminate the action in a finale of incomparable proportions.
As in most other Seymour books there are plenty of other sub-plots that run alongside the main one and this book is no exception with four or five other goings on happening at the same time. Indeed it is with some of these lesser stories that I felt this book was even better than some of Seymour's previous works. I loved the
sub-story of Lovejoy, the Security Service Officer and Deitrich, the interrogator from Camp Delta, who pursue the question of who Caleb really is back home in England.
The characters also were as good as ever, Bart the doctor, who is being used by the Security Services in Saudi Arabia is at first slimy and dislikeable and yet by the end of the book you have more than a measure of sympathy for him. Beth Jenkins, the English teacher who is given special permission from the Saudi Royal family to live near the desert is another character you enjoy getting to know. There are plenty more besides these also.
What makes the whole book especially more poignant is that given the recent events that have tragically happened in London, Seymour shows more than a little of the qualities of a clairvoyant with his near prediction of a British born member of Al Qaeda receiving a luggage packed bomb to wreak terror in a populated area.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Seymour's thrillers are always about far more than providing thrills. Indeed, if he wasn't labelled 'thriller writer', and if he didn't write books that ordinary people enjoy reading, he'd be in line for all sorts of literary awards. From the accuracy of the settings to the quality of the writing to the intricate plots to the careful balancing of sympathies, he is consistently excellent.
This is his best yet. To arouse sympathy for a committed member of Al-Qaeda who is determined on mass murder and is, moreover, a 'renegade' white Brit might seem both impossible and perverse, but Seymour achieves it without ever suggesting that the 'hero's' path in life is anything but tragically wrong. Equally, he excoriates the crassness of some Americans, and denounces the Guantánamo system, without suggesting that the Islamic terrorist view of life is preferable. Rather he shows how the two evils feed off one another, and how the evil on each side perverts all the goodness in individuals, and yet leaves them as human beings who are often disconcertingly sympathetic.
He also suggests, but without preaching, that Caleb has the makings of a great man - a general, a statesman, an explorer, or all three - but that his potential has been ruined by his upbringing. Illegitimate and unwanted, growing up on a sink estate and decanted into a sink school, he longs to rise above the ordinary, but because all he sees around him is petty crime, his aspirations are naturally channelled towards more-than-petty crime, in fact the greatest of all crimes. Naturally affectionate and hating loneliness, he has no loving family, few friends and only one sympathetic teacher, who can do little for him. No wonder he clings with such determination to the one set of people who test him to the limit and then include and esteem him: his 'family', Al-Qaeda.
This is a disquieting book that makes one question all one's ideas about what makes a terrorist. And the ambiguous ending suggests that the terrorist - the intelligent terrorist, the great man gone wrong - is still among us. We made him, we deserve him, and we have no defence against him.
It's also a palpitatingly exciting read. What more can you ask for?
This is his best yet. To arouse sympathy for a committed member of Al-Qaeda who is determined on mass murder and is, moreover, a 'renegade' white Brit might seem both impossible and perverse, but Seymour achieves it without ever suggesting that the 'hero's' path in life is anything but tragically wrong. Equally, he excoriates the crassness of some Americans, and denounces the Guantánamo system, without suggesting that the Islamic terrorist view of life is preferable. Rather he shows how the two evils feed off one another, and how the evil on each side perverts all the goodness in individuals, and yet leaves them as human beings who are often disconcertingly sympathetic.
He also suggests, but without preaching, that Caleb has the makings of a great man - a general, a statesman, an explorer, or all three - but that his potential has been ruined by his upbringing. Illegitimate and unwanted, growing up on a sink estate and decanted into a sink school, he longs to rise above the ordinary, but because all he sees around him is petty crime, his aspirations are naturally channelled towards more-than-petty crime, in fact the greatest of all crimes. Naturally affectionate and hating loneliness, he has no loving family, few friends and only one sympathetic teacher, who can do little for him. No wonder he clings with such determination to the one set of people who test him to the limit and then include and esteem him: his 'family', Al-Qaeda.
This is a disquieting book that makes one question all one's ideas about what makes a terrorist. And the ambiguous ending suggests that the terrorist - the intelligent terrorist, the great man gone wrong - is still among us. We made him, we deserve him, and we have no defence against him.
It's also a palpitatingly exciting read. What more can you ask for?
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
unknown cover
I ordered this book in the cover as shown with a figure in a white outfit with headcovered and what i got was the correct title but not the cover it was an old version of the same... Read more
Published 4 months ago by mick
Not Seymour's best but a good read
SAFE READING - NO SPOILERS
Gerald Seymour has been writing great thrillers - well-researched and carefully written - for many years. Read more
Gerald Seymour has been writing great thrillers - well-researched and carefully written - for many years. Read more
Published 9 months ago by RR Waller
A long desert of a Novel
The Rub al Khali is known as 'the empty quarter', a large desert expanse in Saudi. Most of this novel follows the Unknown Soldier (apprentice terrorist) across the desert as... Read more
Published on 27 Nov 2009 by Clive
"Ambiguous" or "Shaggy Dog"? You decide...
I would never have even picked up this book under normal circumstances, but a friend recently found himself in a foreign hospital for a while, and from their very limited library... Read more
Published on 5 Sep 2008 by Alec Tronn
An appointment with immortal fame
This is 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... Read more
Published on 25 May 2008 by R. Nicholson-morton
Profound insight into the motivation of the terrorist and...
The Unknown Soldier by Gerald Seymour is one of the best attempts by a western writer to get into the minds of the different protagonists in what is misleadingly called 'the war on... Read more
Published on 21 Sep 2007 by Brian M.
unstoppable action all the way!!!!!
I just couldn't put this book down!!!
Although this books pace was alot more sedate than some of his other books, this one definately keeps you on the edge of your seat. Read more
Although this books pace was alot more sedate than some of his other books, this one definately keeps you on the edge of your seat. Read more
Published on 9 Sep 2005
Shades of John le Carre
In the aftermath of the recent London Transport bombings, THE UNKNOWN SOLDIER has a topical theme.
Caleb is a terrorist wannabe - a graduate of an Al Qaeda training camp in... Read more
Published on 4 Sep 2005 by Joseph Haschka
Losing the plot - another chase
I'm sure Gerald Seymour used to be known for a well paced, well plotted, well researched thrillers. However, in this as in some other recent books of his (particularly 'A Line in... Read more
Published on 4 Feb 2005 by Mark R. N. Jones
Seymour gets arty?
Normally with Gerald Seymour you get a past-paced linear thriller. With "the unknown soldier" you get something quite different. Read more
Published on 1 Sep 2004 by Peter Symonds
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