Gerald Seymour

Jonas Merrick, may be a legendary intelligence officer but forced towards his retirement by working in the postroom does not sit well. Equally having to holiday with his long suffering wife, Vera is enough to drive our antihero to the edge of reason……thank goodness for Russian oligarchs, albanian gang money launderers, execution squads and a child killer whose principle weapon is a pair of rusty garden shears….ouch I hear you squirm! Having said all that my review refers to the audio show more book and although I found the story not to my taste, the narration by Ben Allen was superb, his interpretation of the languages on offer was astounding and made the whole experience a visual and edge of the seat treat, a real showcase of how good the audio experience can be and how important the choice of narrator is…brilliant! show less

This is such a fine book.... The great themes of betrayal, honor, integrity, and redemption are played out against a backdrop of old European conflicts, modern English politics and police work, the weapons trade, and old fashion retribution. It's about topics I hadn't thought much about, but the manner by which he pulls them together works so well.

I've had a bit of a problem in the past with Seymour's technique of switching the focus of his narrative back and forth among different show more characters, but in this case it helped paint a intricate backdrop to the story and developed the cast of strong characters in great detail. It's extremely well written and, although the plot is a bit dense and complicated, a thoroughly satisfying read.

This is a great book by an author who seems to just get better and better. show less

This represents the third outing for Jonas Merrick, MI5’s querulous counter-intelligence data analyst. He previously featured in The Crocodile Hunter (in which he dodged imminent retirement by singlehandedly apprehended a would be suicide bomber) and The Foot Soldiers (in which he was loaned to sister service MI6 to help investigate an apparent leak).

Still as querulous and obdurate as ever, he has been assigned to help the fight against OCG (organised crime groups). Contrary to what we show more might infer from watching Line of Duty, this area of work is considered a bit oif a backwater by everyone in the intelligence community. That does not deter Merrick. Having been assigned, he works as assiduously as ever, and the fact that he has a wholly new sphere of external contacts to deal with, does not make him try to be any more gracious or amenable than he has been in the past.

He soon finds himself at the centre of a network of informants, undercover operatives and contacts from a collection of police and intelligence services around the globe. Their principal operation is to follow a semi-submersible craft which is transporting a huge volume of cocaine (worth around £300 million at prevailing street prices) across the Atlantic, where it will be collected by representatives of a leading Spanish OCG family, who have been joined by the matriarch of another criminal family based in Liverpool, who see this as a n opportunity to move up into the next league.

The story takes the form of several different narratives, each following different characters. I found this initially offered an interesting perspective on the developing plot, although it gradually became rather irritating. Still, the story itself is engrossing, and in many ways almost frighteningly plausible.

Merrick is a particularly well drawn character, evoking alternating reactions from the reader. At times I felt a great empathy for his position, being almost ostracised from most of his colleagues. The rest of the time, however, I felt how irritating he would be to work with.

I wonder how far Gerald Seymour can extend this series before the personality of Merrick becomes so odious to the reader that they can’t take any more. We are not there yet, but for this reader at least, that point cannot be too far away. show less

If Gerald Seymour has a formula, it is this: Lay out a situation with life and death potential, introduce characters, build plot, make the characters come alive, and finally – bring them together in a detailed, choreographed, inexorable, and highly suspenseful blast of a conclusion.

The good guys don’t always win and the bad guys don’t always get their due. Sometimes the good guys are bad and the bad guys are something approaching good. And they’re not always guys. Women have a show more substantial place in Seymour’s stories.

In this case, a Croatian village hires a hit man to kill British arms dealer Harvey Gillott after they identify him nineteen years after he betrayed them by not delivering weapons they paid for to hold off murdering Serb forces. The hit mobilizes several characters from competing law enforcement, intelligence, and non-government agencies.

Filled with moral ambiguities, choices, and consequences, The Dealer and the Dead is more than the standard suspense story, as are all of Seymour’s books. show less