Deniable Death (edition 2011)

British M16 devise a plan to assassinate the engineer, the man responsible for keeping the improvised explosive devices from becoming obsolete.

The man's wife has an illness and the team want to learn their route to the hospital so they can make the move at that time.

This is a fast paced novel that is complex to read but entertaining. ( )

You'd think, on the face of it, that this would be a book that would be right up my dark and twisty alley but for some reason A DENIABLE DEATH took an age to read, and I came away from it with a mild sense of disappointment.

And try as I might, I can't quite put my finger on why, as there was much about the book that I did like. It's very much a contemporary thriller, with a very strong idea as the central plot, delivered with pace and authority. I suspect what didn't quite work for me was the contrivance of the classic lone wolf - Badger - trudging through a very dangerous mission with a partner in tow that he can't stand. For some reason that didn't quite gel. Perhaps it's a device that seemed designed overtly to create a bit of tension. Whatever it was, the sniping and bitching got me flipping too many pages, and struggling to maintain focus at points.

Which was annoying as the idea of C.R.O.P. agents somehow seemed very realistic, possible, interesting. I just couldn't get the whole scenario to make sense - even though it is perfectly feasible that at some point in your life, everybody is going to be stuck in some sort of boat with somebody you'd happily rather throw overboard. On one level the whole thing seemed like a reasonable situation - yet at the same time it just refused to work for me in this book.

Of course, it's also very very possible that this simply was the wrong book at the wrong time, and something about those two central characters just got up my nose for no particular reason. Stranger things have been known to happen, and despite any slight sense of disappointment in A DENIABLE DEATH, there are lots of other books by this author that I have loved, and will continue to seek out.

http://www.austcrimefiction.org/review/deniable-death-gerald-seymour ( )

As the war in Iraq winds down, MI6 has identified the maker of roadside bombs that have killed and maimed so many British and American soldiers. He is “The Engineer” and his technology will continue to kill in Afghanistan, if nothing is done. His assassination is planned when it is learned that he will soon travel outside of his home in Iran to seek cancer treatment for his wife.

Two covert surveillance experts, known as “Foxy” and Badger” are inserted into the marshes where he lives near the border with Iraq to determine his destination. This is mainly their story, although Gerald Seymour masterfully weaves the strands of the entire operation together, from the planners in London, to the shooter coming from Tel Aviv, to the MI6 officer supported by contractors waiting in Iraq to extract the surveillance team.

No one does this quite as well as Seymour, from the history and background of the participants – on both sides - to their morality, motivation and codes, to the mounting intensity as the operation progresses and the inevitable complexities arise. ( )