Scoundrel

I didn't take to this book very well at first, it seemed a bit too slow and detailed for the first 50 or so pages.

I took about a year to get through the start, but when it kicked in, the plot was compelling and intriguiing - well worth reading.

It's outside his normal genre (medieval type action thrillers, this a psychological spy thriller), but really got my attention.

Very good attention to the nautical details, and the dark world of espionage.

I find this book tremendously interesting to this day. Cornwell is well known for his Irish characters who have great depth throughout the Sharpe series. This book, in which the main character is an Irish-American former supporter of the Provisional IRA is an intriguing twist. Cronwell builds on his own experience of Belfast during the 1970s. The plot with linkages between the PIRA, Irish-America and Palestinian terrorists is intriguing and the book was banned for some years in the US. I would recommend this thriller highly to Irish and Irish-American readers for the plausible ideas postulated.

A top notch thriller by a master of every genre he writes in. Shanahan starts out as a simple boat surveyor/ deliverer in Belgium but as the pages turn so does the plot. Layers are peeled back that slowly reveal Shanahan as more and more and even more than what he seemed. Simple remote tragedy becomes personal and cutting. The tragedy of misery that produces terrorists stands out starkly.

Thoroughly enjoyed this book -- riveting and with unexpected turns around every corner. The book has a true hero/anti-hero which makes it quite complex. It's dated around the time of the first Iraq War, right before 9/11, and knowing what''s to come makes it quite believable. Well worth the reading time.

Scoundrel, by Bernard Cornwell


As part of my continuing experiment with Scribd’s ebook subscription service, I stumbled upon Scoundrel, by one of my favorite authors, Bernard Cornwell. I know him from his great historical fiction - some of my favorites are the Saxon Chronicles, his novel about Agincourt and the Thomas of Hookton Archer series. Who knew he’d written sailing novels?

Scoundrel, by Bernard Cornwell

Bostonian Paul Shanahan is a smuggler, an arms dealer, a suspected CIA agent, and a sailor. Now he’s agreed to haul $5M in gold across the ocean in a sailboat to help the IRA….Scoundrel is a kind of Patriot Games with Sailboats. Good fun. If you’re looking for a good airplane book, this’ll do the trick.

The first real show more “discovery” I had using Scribd, it found this book for me, and I thought I was aware of every book in Cornwell’s resume. While it’s nothing like as serious as his other works, it was good fun all the same. show less