I've been a reader of Frederick Forsyth books since I stole borrowed a copy of "The Dogs Of War" from my Dad last summer. I always assumed this style of crime/spy/thriller novel wouldn't be my cup of tea at all, but his novels have a flow, feeling and style that really work for me. I find them very readable. After devouring "The Dogs Of War" [which, by the way is excellent and ranks up there amongst the best books I've read. Classic] I quickly read "The Day Of The Jackal", another cracker of a read and usually rated as his best book. The atmosphere he presented was awesome. The last book I read of his was "Icon" in October last year, one of his more modern novels [1996] which also provided some good reading too and from a work meeting in Leeds.
Anyway, so I got a triple-pack of his books for Christmas but I've been rather slow at reading them - so I grabbed "The Avenger" when packing my stuff for Mallorca in the hope that I would get some downtime to read. In the end, it turned out the DVD player in the villa was broken, so gave us plenty of time to read in the evening once the boys had gone to bed.
"The Avenger" is typical Forsyth, in so much as it contains his trademark system of interweaving stories, reaches back to history, mixing fact and fiction and a hero who is ex or current military or secret service. In "Avenger", the eponymous protagonist is ex-US Military and the story managed to link various world conflicts including World War 2, Vietnam, The Balkans Wars, the Soviet Afghan invasion and the current 'War on Terror'; using characters from each to paint different points of view and have them all combine in the finale. I wont write any spoilers here as I don't like reviews that do that, so I also don't recommend reading the information on this book on Wikipedia as it does spoil some of the plot twists somewhat.
The basic premise of the book, without spoiling it, is that a young American is killed whilst employed as an aide working in the Balkans. Through a series of linked stories, the boy's Grandfather manages to call in some help from old friends and recruits the title character to help "render" the killer to American soil where he can be tried for his crime. What hinders this is the facts the killer is already known to both the FBI and the CIA and is currently missing from all intelligence databases.
Despite good opening few chapters, the books does slow down a bit in the middle section, and FF does get himself too muddied in his endless lists of real life facts used to back up his fantasy at some points, which tends to dull the reading a tad. The start and finish are good though; the character introductions are nicely paced and you don't get lost trying to remember which group of people you are reading about. The finale of the book works well and the speed picks up at the right time. It's annoying that a couple of new characters are thrown into the mix in the final few chapters, meaning that you don't have a character background on them, very odd bearing in mind there would have been no reason for one of the other characters to take the place of them without altering the story at all. I had guess the final plot twist about three quarters into the novel, but that doesn't spoil the ending at all.
The book leaves you with a poser of sorts, leaving you asking yourself the great dichotomy about whether it is allowable to let the actions of a few go unpunished, no matter how abhorrent those actions, if the perceived benefit is the betterment of society and the hopeful saved lives of thousands.
