The Unknown Soldier (Paperback)

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.

Caleb is a terrorist wannabe - a graduate of an Al Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan. But his bad luck resulted in his capture by American troops and incarceration at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where for many months he successfully maintained the cover of being a simple taxi diver caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. Finally, released as a PR gesture and returned to Afghanistan under guard, Caleb escapes before he can be handed over to the Afghani Security Service, and immediately starts the long journey to rejoin his Al Qaeda "family" now holed up in the Rub' al Khali desert of Saudi Arabia, otherwise known as the "Empty Quarter". Because Caleb is not an Arab, but rather an Outsider, he's to be given a special mission.

There is little in the way of "thriller" in THE UNKNOWN SOLDIER, a variance from the usual Gerald Seymour novel that may put off some of his fans. Rather, this novel resembles those penned by John le Carre in that it's relatively heavy on character development (Caleb's) and the sometimes plodding nature of intelligence work, and short on sustained action. Indeed, most of the plot involves Caleb's torturous camel journey across the searing hot Empty Quarter in the company of three other Al Qaeda foot soldiers, a Bedouin guide, and the latter's young son - all dedicated to delivering their precious charge to the organization's remote HQ. The opposition is represented by Marty and Lizzy-Jo, two young CIA operatives searching the Rub' al Khali for evidence of terrorists with cameras mounted on the remotely-controlled Predator drones they fly out of a remote desert base, the CIA's station chief in Riyadh, Juan Gonsalves, Juan's MI6 counterpart, Eddie Wroughton, who finds himself on the short end of the Anglo-American "special relationship", and Jed Dietrich, Caleb's Defense Intelligence Agency interrogator back in Gitmo. Jed was on vacation when the CIA and the FBI decided to cut Caleb loose, and now, after belatedly winkling out a clue as to the taxi driver's true identity, Jed is determined to rectify that mistake regardless of the peril to his career by being the bearer of bad news to his superiors.

I'm awarding THE UNKNOWN SOLDIER four stars because I've long been an admirer of the le Carre's style, which eschews sensationalism. However, in consciously or unconsciously emulating le Carre, Seymour has done something I've not seen in any of his other books, i.e., leave a glaring loose end that would seem to invite a sequel. But, since that's not been the author's style to date, I fear I'm left here with a book that has a somewhat unsatisfying ending. In all other respects, however, THE UNKNOWN SOLDIER is vintage Seymour in that it contains real-world characters engaged in a struggle that results in a Pyrrhic victory, if indeed victory is achieved at all.

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.