Thursday 1 November 2012

GERALD SEYMOUR - HARRY'S GAME (1975)


Blurb........... A British cabinet minister is gunned down on a London street by an IRA assassin. In the wake of a national outcry, the authorities must find the hitman. But the trail is long cold, the killer gone to ground in Belfast, and they must resort to more unorthodox methods to unearth him. Ill prepared and poorly briefed, undercover agent Harry Brown is sent into the heart of enemy territory to infiltrate the terrorists..

But when it is a race against the clock, mistakes are made and corners cut. For Harry Brown, alone in a city of strangers, where an intruder is the subject of immediate gossip and rumour, one false move is enough to leave him fatally isolated....

I have recently expanded my scope of fiction reading to encompass the “thriller” and as Gerald Seymour has on occasion been touted as the best thriller writer working today in the UK, why not give him a go?

Harry’s Game was his debut novel, first published in the mid-70’s and probably never out of print since.

Whilst the politics in Northern Ireland have moved on in the last thirty years, the novel stands the test of time. Seymour offers the reader a perspective from both the Nationalist viewpoint and those involved on the British side, both on the ground locally and those, slightly more remote in government in London.

I enjoyed this first venture into Seymour country. He manages to convincingly drive the story forward, conveying a sense of realism and fear for Harry as the other side close in to try to shut him down.

Just as well really because I recently bought a 20 strong Seymour book bundle second hand on E-Bay!

4 out of 5.


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