276°
Posted 20 hours ago

In At The Kill (Jonas Merrick series)

£11£22.00Clearance
ZTS2023's avatar
Shared by
ZTS2023
Joined in 2023
82
63

About this deal

I think that he could have trimmed a little from it as it seemed to take an eternity to get to the end point and by that time I was not invested enough in any of the characters to really care very much. He always sets out good plots but his writing style is starting to irritate with his insistence on using three or four similes when one will do and how he painfully tries to avoid clichés. In 1999, he featured in the Oscar-winning television film, One Day in September, which portrayed the Munich Olympics massacre. Weather intervenes and the semi-submersible is forced to push on towards a landing on the Spanish Costa del Morte, the coast of death around Cape Finisterre.

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. But while Jonas's colleagues regard him as scratchy, fastidious, old, he is also ruthless, cunning and brutally pragmatic. 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. 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.My favourite character was the "hero" Jonas Merrick, a beautifully understated "conductor", masterminding events from his nondescript backroom lair.

However he again retains his deep engagement and concern with those agents undercover at the front line. He is something of an anti-hero, who cares little for his perceived persona but a great deal for the team he directs into danger. so we can see Jonas adapting to new - and difficult - circumstances as a widower, whilst continuing his Eternal Flame duties. This represents the third outing for Jonas Merrick, MI5’s querulous counter-intelligence data analyst. Also, if the characters were suppose to be bad, then where was the terrible violence that crime families would inflict.As usual our hero to the possible detriment to his own health gets a little too close to the action. 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. 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. This is the third book in this excellent series featuring the totally believable and ever so endearing Jonas Merrick.

I think I've read all of Gerald Seymour's books but find this and the other Jonas Merrick books tough going. The amazingly boring gray civil servant Jonas Merrick turns out in an unbelievable fashion to be the real James Bond. The third in the Jonas Merrick series, and with Merck there now seems insufficient character left to be developed.Other similar authors include: John le Carre, Len Deighton, Graham Greene, Alan Furst, Mick Herron, Ted Allbeury, Robert Ludlum, Dan Fesperman, Simon Conway, Henry Porter and Adam Brookes. Despite Vera's warnings, he also shows signs here of wanting to emerge from behind his desk, to get "in at the kill". 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. The only drag back for me is despite a great lead character and plausible supporting cast and storylines, the big crescendo that is seemingly built up never arrives.

Asda Great Deal

Free UK shipping. 15 day free returns.
Community Updates
*So you can easily identify outgoing links on our site, we've marked them with an "*" symbol. Links on our site are monetised, but this never affects which deals get posted. Find more info in our FAQs and About Us page.
New Comment