Order from a Major Online Bookstore
Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine
Save Your Time And Money
| AnyBook4Less.com | Order from a Major Online Bookstore |
|
| Home | Store List | FAQ | Contact Us | | ||
| Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine Save Your Time And Money |
||
 |
Title: A Line in the Sand by Gerald Seymour, Anthony Head, Anthony J. Headley ISBN: 0-7540-0356-6 Publisher: Chivers Audio Books Pub. Date: September, 1999 Format: Audio Cassette Volumes: 12 List Price(USD): $96.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.62 (8 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: One of Seymour's Best
Comment: This is another tightly plotted thriller from Gerald Seymour that is awfully hard to put down once you start reading. The author often places relatively ordinary people into extraordinary situations - and he does so in this book. Seymour doesn't write about superheroes - I can't imagine Harrison Ford playing any role in any film of a Seymour book. Instead Seymour creates highly believable characters, complete with foibles, weaknesses, irrational impulses and some strengths. The main characters in "A Line in the Sand" all have their own weaknesses, strengths and motivations. Seymour weaves these together with great skill to create a taut, tense thriller.
Seymour books often differ from the Clancys and Ludlums of the world in another respect - don't expect too many happy endings. Seymour writes about worlds where there's a certain inevitability of disaster - and he often lets disasters happen. That makes his stories much more credible, and much more frightening than most.
Seymour also poses moral dilemmas for his characters. He's not an author who thinks one side is completely right and the other completely wrong. For Seymour, all combatants are flawed in some respects. In "A Line in the Sand", Seymour creates a moral dilemma for the inhabitants of a small English village - do they support one of their own or deflect a threat to their village by casting that person out ?
I enjoyed "A Line in the Sand". In fact, it's one of Seymour's best novels so far.
Rating: 5
Summary: One of Seymour's Best
Comment: I didn't expect to like this book. I had read and tremendously enjoyed what some call Seymour's Northern Ireland trilogy (Harry's Game, Field of Blood, and the Journeyman Tailor), but I hadn't liked another effort, Kingfisher.
But while I eagerly continue to wait for another Seymour thriller centered in Northern Ireland, I decided to read his book Untouchable, which while not perfect, had me in its grip from the first to last page.
So I decided to give Seymour another whirl, and I picked out A Line in the Sand. After reading it in about two days, I have to say the analogy one reviewer made of Seymour's plots coiling around a reader like a boa constrictor as the tension builds to an unbearable level is well put. The book is very hard to put down, and really doesn't have any flaws (apart from a couple of minor facts not worth mentioning here).
Furthermore, like in his other books Seymour doesn't just write a thriller, he presents the reader with an ethical question. "What would you do if you found out your neighbor was marked for death by a state sponsor of terror like Iran? Would you rally to his side, stand aloof, or try to drive him out of your pretty little village?"
As for myself, I'd like to think that I'd continue to be a friend and neighbor, but suggest that my good friend the terrorist target take a long vacation until the threat subsided.
Bottom Line: A superb read, it is reportedly being made into a movie even as I write this. I look forward to seeing that . . .
. . . But I hope with all my heart that with his next book (titled Meaning No Evil) Seymour returns to his familiar stomping grounds of Northern Ireland and with all the wonderful characters that he created there: Inspector Rennie, Cathy Parker, Gary Brennard, and of course, Frankie, the IRA man.
Rating: 5
Summary: A first class example of the genre
Comment: The West's current struggle with fundamentalist Islamic terrorists makes A LINE IN THE SAND all the more topical even though it's fiction. As such, it's an engrossing novel by plot-meister Gerald Seymour.
Brit Gavin Hughes was once a salesman selling illicit industrial mixing equipment to the Iranians for the latter's use in making weapons of mass destruction at a top-secret base. Then MI6 caught on, and put the squeeze on Hughes to become an informant. Gavin's information eventually allowed the Mossad to deal a crippling blow to Iran's WMD program. For his own protection, MI6 gives Gavin a new identity and life. He's now Frank Perry living with his wife Meryl and foster son Stephen in an isolated village on the Suffolk coast. The thing is, you see, a Saudi raid on an isolated terrorist camp yields evidence that the Iranians have discovered Gavin's identity and are sending in their master assassin, the Anvil, to make the hit. The British Security Service (MI5) now has jurisdiction, and pleads with Frank to run once more, but he adamantly refuses. Thus, an odd lot of players are converging on the village, its inhabitants, and the Perrys: the Anvil, the assassin's local accomplice previously converted to Islam, MI5, Scotland Yard, the SAS, an FBI anti-terrorist specialist, a sullen Scottish tracker and his dogs, a former British diplomat and his scarred foreign-born wife (the latter a survivor of Chile's torture chambers), and an injured marsh harrier - a migratory bird of prey.
One of my pet peeves with some "highly acclaimed" writers is that they impart no individuality to the principal characters of their books. The British government minister, the Yank CIA officer, the South American drug king, and the Tokyo police detective all talk and act as if they're cut from the same cloth, which might as well be that of an insurance broker in Des Moines. Seymour, on the other hand, makes each individual unique and real. This talent can make up for other faults. However, A LINE IN THE SAND is not deficient by any standard to which I hold. It's a taut, smart, finely crafted thriller that should encourage the reader to investigate Seymour's other works. More than that, it's a contemporary parable on the consequences of one's actions.
 |
Title: Dead Ground by Gerald Seymour ISBN: 0671025295 Publisher: Pocket Books Pub. Date: 01 May, 2000 List Price(USD): $6.99 |
 |
Title: At Close Quarters by Gerald Seymour ISBN: 055214732X Publisher: Bantam Pr Ltd Pub. Date: 1999 List Price(USD): $15.95 |
 |
Title: Day of Absolution : A Novel by John E. Gardner ISBN: B0000645XB Pub. Date: September, 2000 List Price(USD): $26.00 |
 |
Title: Circle William: A Novel by Bill Harlow ISBN: 0684850397 Publisher: Scribner Pub. Date: February, 1999 List Price(USD): $23.00 |
 |
Title: The Witch Finder by Loren D. Estleman ISBN: 0446607606 Publisher: Warner Books Pub. Date: 01 September, 1999 List Price(USD): $6.50 |
Thank you for visiting www.AnyBook4Less.com and enjoy your savings!
Copyright� 2001-2021 Send your comments
