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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A little girl's promise kept, 2 Oct 2005
What would happen if two tons of fertilizer hit the fan? During the first hundred pages of THE BOMBMAKER, one learns that four otherwise respectable Beijing Chinese - a general, two bankers, and a relative of former Communist Party First Secretary Deng Xiaoping - want to blow a bloody big hole in the center of London's financial district. Why isn't immediately apparent. Maybe they'd encountered a snippy foreign exchange teller on their last visit to The City. To work out the details, they employ a mysterious killer-for-hire named Egan, who coerces a former IRA bombmaker, Andrea Hayes, to construct the explosive device by kidnapping her young daughter, Katie. In the bad old days, Andrea specialized in fertilizer bombs, but gave up that line of work after accidently killing four young boys and maiming a fifth. For years, she's lived with her husband, Martin, who knows nothing of her past. THE BOMBMAKER is such a first rate knuckle-biter that the unspecified reason for the plot, though eventually revealed, recedes into the background and the reader is left to fear for Katie in her basement prison, to empathize with Andrea confronting the repercussions of past notoriety and four-thousand pounds of smelly Bandini, and sympathize with Martin left alone, frantic, and without a clue. And it only gets better when MI5 finally gets dropped into the plot's mix. The high-tension ending should leave even the most jaded of thriller readers satisfied. Oddly, however, it's spunky Katie's last act that prompted me to award 5 stars, even though she's given relatively little exposure in the overall story. Because of her, I ended up liking this book enormously. Cross my heart and swear to die.
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by Stephen Leather
by Stephen Leather
by Stephen Leather
by Stephen Leather
by Stephen Leather
