His best since Journeyman Tailor
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I was drawn to Gerald Seymour by Harry's Game in the 1980's. His gift was the ability to people pacy and complex plots, set in the "grey" world that most of us (thankfully) never experience at first hand, with three dimensional characters you could both identify with and care for; essentially ordinary, decent, people spiralled into life or death situations by events largely beyond their control.
Then, with The Fighting Man and The Waiting Time, I thought the author had gone the way of many before him; exhausted of ideas he wrote page after page of waffle and "filler", replacing character with charicature and plot with endless descriptive prose. I gave up and abandoned him. "Shot his bolt" I thought.
Earlier this year, largely through lack of choice on the local shop's bookshelf, I bought Line In The Sand. The next three or four days were a blur to me. I couldn't put it down. This was even better than the old Seymour I remembered. All the strength had returned to his pen, gone was the feigning. This time, however, there was a fourth dimension; maturity. I knew all the characters, I knew what drove them, what happened to them was an extension of their background. They were complete.
I tried to imagine the possible endings - there were several. You were never sure with the "old" Seymour and the new, rejuvenated, one was just as unpredictable.
A must. The most enjoyable read I've had in years.
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Brilliant, One of the best thrillers ever written
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Gerald Seymour has managed to do someting tremendous- write in between the deep yet slow pace of Le Carre and the Mach2 speed of Higgins and the result is incredible. A Line in the Sand revolves around Frank Perry, who spied for the British against Iran. 10 yrs later Iran sends its best assassin to reep revenge by killing perry. It is up to MI5 to protect him and the book moves at a perfect pace and is action studded all the way. Simply a MUST
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Another moving, gripping story from the world's best
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I usually read a Seymour in a day: I start it in the evening and it keeps me reading until the wee hours. This is another book in the terse, crisp style that characterises his thrillers. Having read all of the books I keep searching out other good thriller writers and there just aren't many in that league of pace, emotive power, believability and memorableness (perhaps Frederick Forsyth or Michael Crichton). I hope Mr. Seymour keeps it up with gold standard thrillers like this.
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Disappointingly parochial
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Having read much about Gerald Seymour's talents, I was sadly disappointed with this novel. I think readers of "political thrillers" want there to be much more at stake than there is in this painfully slow-moving and claustrophobic tale. Who really cares about what happens to a small-time civilian turned small-time spy in a small village in dreary old Suffolk? The plot itself is scarcely believable. Would the Iranian government really despatch their best man to England to assassinate an unwitting ingenu rather than making a symbolic retaliatory strike against the government that sent him, as the book reminds us they did in the case of the bombed American Embassies? And furthermore, the whole plot revolves around the fact that the 'target' refuses to leave home and go to a safe house. Not only is this principle laboriously and unconvincingly justified, the acceptance of it by the security forces is highly unlikely. In my opinion Gerald Seymour's novels are becoming increasingly populated by small-time nobodies who wear vests, go bird-watching and know what 'culverts' are. The thriller reader wants higher stakes, more believable motivation, more excitement!
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Back to his Best
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"Field of Blood", "The Glory Boys" and "Harry's Game" got me hooked on Gerald Seymour. My enthusiasm was on the wane when "The Journeyman Taylor" reignited it. I agree that recently a few have been below par, "The Fighting Man" in particular was probably his worst. A Line in the Sand however takes Seymour back up to the top. All the classic trademarks are there; the realistic characters and their situations, the pace of the story, the matter of fact description of shattering events, and of course the "well we can't have a really happy ending because that would never do". If I have one critisism it is the continul re-introduction of charaters from previous books - I find this a bit twee. My copy of Holding the Line is in my bookcase waiting its turn to read - It has a hard act to follow.
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