Frederick Forsyth remains the master story-teller for sure. This page turner is to be picked up only if you have a free Sunday afternoon to finish it in one go. His timing is uncanny as always. This novel goes deep into the Somalian operations of Al-Shabaab. With Kenya's mall shoot-out not even a month old, a novel with the terrorist group (Al-Shabaab) responsible for same as the central plot was quite spooky. This is not the first time I felt the same. Even the release of his earlier novel "Afghan" and the killing of a few high profile Al-Quaeda officials were eerily close.
The Kill List - story also has an interesting sub-plot of Somalian ship highjacking, which coincided with me watching "Tom Hanks starrer Captain Phillips" yesterday. Overall a master thriller set in the current complexity of global terrorism is both well researched and well timed. Must read.
Rating : 4.5 / 5
1 comment:
If 'Afghan' detailed the terror networks themselves, Kill list focuses on the people who actually feed it the hatred it needs - the preacher (s). It begins with a code name that lands on a kill list and the subsequent man-hunt to hunt down and kill a man who feeds hatred through his oratory and takes pleasure in the drawn out death of his captives.
While threads of desert combat, HALO drops, negotiation tactics and the prevalence of pirates on the Somali coast are familiar to readers of Forsyth's other works, what sets the Kill list apart are the following : 1. This time its personal...very personal to the hero of the book 2. But for his occupation, said hero may have been an extraordinary chess player.
Usually the strategizing is left to behind-the-scenes men or the controllers but in this case, 'the Tracker' is a hybrid specimen capable of hard battle as well as superb strategizing (kind of like Mike Martin meets Nigel Irvine meets several cool gadgets and a no-holds barred budget)
That being said, one did miss the 'twist in the tale' that one expects from Forsyth...Nice read though.
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