Every Seymour novel is like a runaway train heading down a sloping track, steadily gathering pace until eventually it crashes, with inevitable consequences for the characters, good and bad, that he has introduced us to. I did wonder that if this manuscript had come from someone without this reputation, would Hodder and Stoughton have been so keen to publish? The set up is deftly drawn (drugs shipment due to land in Spain), the characters established early on but then not much happens for a very long time. I felt that the author was attempting to go down the Frederick Forsyth/John le Carre route re espionage, but it didn't really come off. My favourite character was the "hero" Jonas Merrick, a beautifully understated "conductor", masterminding events from his nondescript backroom lair.

I appreciate that Gerald Seymour books are all about the gradual build up of tension but this was pedestrian and the pay-off not worth the wait. Yet Seymour also endows him with two endearing character traits - his desire to be in on the action at the sharp end, despite his physical limitations that should restrict him to his behind the scenes role, and his angst at the impact his plans will inevitably have on the sometimes entirely innocent people who are caught up in the operations he plans. A very wordy book and till you get into it, quite confusing with the long chapters and chopping and changing of where the action is taking place. It is never an easy read, as Seymour builds the fear and worry you feel for the characters as the climax approaches, but once you are a single chapter into a Seymour novel I would defy anyone to put it down and leave the rest unread. Jonas Merrick works in counter surveillance helping to keep the country safe and break any criminal enterprises.MI5 (via Merrick) has a deeply implanted agent in that area, one with an almost 3 year undercover engagement there, someone who has managed to become well infiltrated into the ruling drug running family of the region.

After thirty odd novels with different protagonists, it's perverse to have such a dull central figure for our first regular character. However he again retains his deep engagement and concern with those agents undercover at the front line. The character of Jonas Merrick seems to have developed in a rather unpleasant way that I found irritating to such an extent that it distracted from the storyline rather than added to it. I understand that this is the third book in a series - although I haven't read the earlier novels, I felt that this book worked just fine as a standalone. Contrary to what we might infer from watching Line of Duty, this area of work is considered a bit oif a backwater by everyone in the intelligence community.I found this initially offered an interesting perspective on the developing plot, although it gradually became rather irritating. As in earlier novels, Merrick acts as a lone wolf and manages to antagonise senior officers in parts of the UK’s law enforcement agencies outside MI5. Initially a journalist, he joined ITN in 1963, covering such topics as the Great Train Robbery, Vietnam, Ireland, the Munich Olympics massacre, Germany's Red Army, Italy's Red Brigades and Palestinian militant groups. As usual in my reviews, I will not rehash the plot or the publisher's blurb - instead I highly recommend that you read this for yourself. If this was a character trait, then it would be OK, but all of his characters speak the same way which is implausible.

This is the first book I've read by Gerald Seymour, but I intend to remedy that as I enjoyed it so much. All told, I left the book with a feeling of disappointment due to both the warm recommendation and the reputation of the author from his ITN reporting days.At times I felt a great empathy for his position, being almost ostracised from most of his colleagues.