Live Fire (The 6th Spider Shepherd Thriller) (Dan Shepherd Mystery) [Paperback]

In LIVE FIRE, author Stephen Leather's hero of several novels, Dan "Spider" Shepherd, an undercover operative with Her Majesty's Serious Organized Crime Agency (SOCA), is off to Thailand to infiltrate a Pattaya-based British gang of master bank robbers that periodically returns home to replenish the funds for its exorbitant lifestyle. Meantime in London, a home-grown cell of Muslim jihadists is planning a bloody outrage that'll kill hundreds. Because of Spider's particular karma, the two plots ultimately intersect.

Leather spends much of his time living in Thailand. Therefore, it's no surprise that the storyline of LIVE FIRE puts Shepherd there for most of the narrative, but is somewhat surprising that the author has taken so long in the series to do so. Leather's physical description of Pattaya and its status as "the biggest single prostitution center in the world" suggests a comfortable familiarity with the place. (For a depiction of the Thai sex industry, see Stephen's excellent novel, Private Dancer.)

For readers whose first encounter with Spider is LIVE FIRE, the plot deserves 5 stars. For one such as me, who's followed his exploits over the years, it rates perhaps 4. The Shepherd character has perhaps become too familiar and/or I've become jaded.

In order to introduce the new reader to Dan's career path with SOCA, the narrative inevitably begins with the end game of a crime caper from which Spider must extract himself as the cops close in but before his cover is blown. Then, he immediately gets new marching orders to follow for the duration of the story from his boss, Charlotte "Charlie" Button. Subsequently, there are a couple pages in which Dan, a single father, has a guilt trip when he tells his young son, Liam, and his dead wife's parents that he's off on another job and won't be around to spend quality time. (While I know this digression establishes Spider's just-a-regular-bloke humanity to newbies, perhaps next time we could move forward a decade when Liam is interested in girls and won't miss Dad so much.)

It's in LIVE FIRE that Dan is first inferred to be carrying a torch for his boss, Charlie Button, for which telling evidence surfaces during a visit to one of Pattaya's bars:

"There were two pneumatic blondes dancing topless and a stunning redhead in a red thong and high heels doing a solo on the second podium ... Two more girls joined the redhead. One was a blonde with wavy hair, green eyes and milk-white flawless skin, the other a brunette with a pageboy hair-cut and dark brown eyes. She was like Charlotte Button, Shepherd thought, disconcerted.

'You like her?' asked Sergei.

Shepherd reddened like a schoolboy who'd been caught looking at a pornographic magazine. 'She's fit,' he said."

Now, I bring this up because I think Button one of the more intriguing characters of the Spider series. Plus, I suspect that she's hot. So I'd like to take the cheeky liberty of suggesting to the author the emphasis of a future book, i.e. that the narrative focus be on Charlie with Spider as an ancillary character. Thus, the saga of the latter can continue, albeit through the perspective of someone else, while a different facet of Dan's world can be developed and the repetitive mold of the series as a whole broken. Thinking outside the box.

Alternatively, some act of violence by one of the jihadist groups fermenting in the U.K. might seriously cripple or kill Liam. The emotional devastation could transform Shepherd into an agent of vengeance. One of Leather's first books, The Chinaman (Stephen Leather Thrillers), took that general approach, and it was one of his best reads.

Are you with me on this, Stephen?

All of this said, I'll keep reading installments of the Spider series for as long as they continue to be penned; I'll even put them ahead of any of Andy McNab's thrillers in the unread queue on my bookshelf.

Another solid outing for Spider, this time going undercover to join a group of bank-robbers in Pattaya, Thailand which is home territory (Private Dancer) for Leather and he covers the sordid resort well and with some amusement as Razor manages to enjoy himself. The robbers attempts to buy some RPG's crosses a plot with some British born Muslim terrosists similarly buying weapons to cause havoc at home. Spider has to charm and deceive the felons as well as stop a terrorist attack, in a plot that becomes as spicy as good Tom Yum Goong. A fine read even if a tad rushed and far-fetched at the end. For those who enjoy Thai crime try Jake Needham or John Burdett's books.

Spider Shepherd, ex SAS and now SOCA bad boy, is back and Stephen leather produces another entertaining and page turning story. Set in Thailand and UK Spider infiltrates a gang of bank robbers and also gets involved in a terrorist attack on the UK.

This is not the best Spider Shepherd book and in fact it is probably one of the weaker instalments, yet the dialogue is punchy and fine, the settings well reaslised and the narrative trots along. The problems occur because it does stall in the middle, it gets a little tiresome as we trot from bar to strip club in Pattaya as Spider proves his manliness and the constant 'need to know' references. There are some convenient plot turns and coincidences (Russian RPG suppliers, Yokely pitching up) and the central tenet of the story revolves around Spider not being honest with his boss and burgeoning love interest Charlie. I didn't buy this at all, it felt contrived and so too did the odd ending with Mickey Moore, which simply isn't believable or credible. Spider has such a strong sense of doing the right thing that it seemed to out of character.

I am also little tired (but not exhausted) of the split terrorist / crime narrative as well - in this instance the terrorist element was a sideline and lacked the necessary depth to be really threatening. You can predict the outcome too easily. The books strengths are around the growth of the Spider character, he has a more balanced relationship with his son and home life now and the Charlie relationship is certainly one that has developed in an interesting way. He is the hard man trying to do the right thing - but is well rounded and believable, his moral code is strong and whatever doubts or weaknesses he has are nicely drawn out by Leather.

I will continue to buy the series as it has more good than bad within it, these are disposable fast-paced reads which are designed to enteratin. They succeed and are far harder to write and more worthy of praise than they usually get. Further, it's nice to read a British action thriller writer with some bite. Ignore the silly axe grinding 1* reviews they are clearly motivated by something else. N.Brett is a fine impartial reviewer and one of the good guys of Amazon reviewing and always worth using as a barometer,in my experience, on judging thrillers.