Bad Company
The novel, the author’s 35th, begins promisingly, playing to Higgins’s greatest strength, WWII action. Young Baron Max von Berger, entrusted by Hitler during the last days of
the Third Reich with his diary as well as the key to a vast fortune in Swiss banks, makes a daring and exciting escape from the F?hrerbunker. But once the narrative leaps toward the present, it begins to flag, with a second setup (including a nifty Saddam cameo) explaining why and how the baron inherits the wealth and power of the Rashid family, the Arab oil kingpins destroyed by Higgins’s customary antihero, Sean Dillon, in the last book. Problematic is Higgins’s use of von Berger and his thuggish son as villains here; they lack the evil charisma of the Rashids. To avenge the death of the Rashids, von Berger targets Dillon and his master, British black ops commander Gen. Charles Ferguson, who fights back with the help of the usual crew of “hard” men, including computer whiz Major Roper, White House black ops chief Blake Johnson, London tough guys Harry and Billy Salter, et al. Matters pick up a bit when von Berger’s son kidnaps General Ferguson to Germany, but Dillon’s rescue attempt whips by much too quickly, as if Higgins were hurrying to finish this book and get on to number 36. T
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dominated Atlantic, twenty-two men and five nuns aboard the Barquentine Deutschland are battling home to Kiel. Among them are a U-boat ace captured in a raid on Falmouth. A female American doctor caught in the nightmare of flying bombs. A gunboat commander who’s fought from the Solomons to the Channel and a rear admiral desperate to get some of the action. Allies and enemies, men and women, the hunters and the haunted all drawn into the eye of the storm.
s, Higgins proposes that Nazi lieutenant Martin Bormann escaped Allied forces in 1945 and made his way in a U-boat to South America, along with a notebook listing U.S. and British Nazi sympathizers. One of the names in the notebook happens to be the Duke of Windsor. In 1992, a diver in the Caribbean finds the wreck of the vessel, and word gets back to the British authorities that the notebook is still onboard. Irish terrorist Sean Dillon is recruited to retrieve the item, but he’s not the only one interested: a notorious drug dealer with Parliamentary connections is also in on the hunt. The involving story unfolds rapidly across two continents as the rivals race to secure the momentous prize. Helped immeasurably by Dillon’s fascinating character and a stylish performance by Roger Moore, the tension builds to an enthralling climax. Highly recommended.
o be a customer using an Australian identity as a cover. The passage back to England becomes one of cross and double-cross, and before it’s over several more deaths go down ere Chavasse closes in on the bad guys and, together with the victim’s brother, ensures the carriage of justice.While the storyline is suspenseful, this is a pretty short novel at 180 pages set in fairly large print. The plot is quite straightforward, with just a few characters and a couple of settings, and is characterized by sustained action as opposed to intrigue or complexity. By today’s modern thriller standards, this simplistic book comes across as pretty tame — maybe that was to be expected from a book published nearly 35 years ago.
The Irish peace process is at risk because of the actions of a heartbroken mother in Higgins’s 29th thriller. American-born and married to a British lord, 60-ish Lady Helen Lang, the “nicest person you’ll ever meet,” has taken it upon herself to avenge the brutal death of her son, Peter, at the hands of the Sons of Erin, a fringe Irish-nationalist group led by a psychotic Vietnam vet and with operatives in Dublin, London and the U.S. Other members include gangster Tim Pat Ryan, IRA terrorist Jack Barry, U.S. Senator Michael Cohan and a mysterious member known only as the Connection, who is revealed to be a mole in the White House. With nothing more than an old government file, a modified computer and a .25 revolver, Lady Helen makes short work of most of these villains, managing at one point to knock off three of them in four paragraphs. Naturally, this wholesale violence attracts the attention of Higgins regulars Brigadier Charles Ferguson and Sean Dillon, who try to protect Senator Cohan during his upcoming visit to London. It’s not giving away any surprises to reveal that eventually the bad guys get theirs, but there are precious few surprises here, and a bloodless, cartoonish quality to everything from the dialogue to the killings. Higgins’s attempt at characterizations are unpersuasive at bestAto prove that she’s really a decent sort, Lady Helen passes up a chance to kill Senator Cohan in favor of shooting a couple of muggersAand as usual, Sean Dillon’s prowess as a gunman includes the ability to outshoot men who have already drawn a gun on him. As for the style, everything is fast, flat and featureless, like driving a car on cruise control in Kansas.
lin–the unforgettable antihero of The Eagle Has Landed , who makes a featured appearance here–and of Martin Brosnan, an American Special Forces hero and IRA member turned college professor. After Dillon’s attempt to assassinate former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher during a visit to France fails, he decides to go after her successor, John Major, and his War Cabinet with a mortar attack on 10 Downing Street. Learning that British Intelligence is recruiting Brosnan to track him down, Dillon confronts his old enemy, a meeting that ends in tragedy and leaves Brosnan bitterly committed to revenge. Although readers can be sure that Dillon’s scheme will be foiled, fun remains in the how and why. Standard Higgins in style, plot and resolution, this is bound for bestsellerdom
Sheba. The Temple turns out to be all too real. And, unfortunately for Kane and his friends, the Nazi’s have discovered the Temple first and are using it as headquarters to implement Hitler’s plan to destroy the Suez Canal. The mixture of archeology and Nazism, naturally brings to mind Indiana Jones and, in fact, the book is very reminiscent of those movies. This is the kind of story where all the villains have German accents, and the heroes can survive a 30-mile hike in the desert with no water. Who cares if the characters are one-dimensional stereotypes (the dashing archeologist, the mysterious beautiful woman)? This fast-paced story has enough action and adventure to make up for any such shortcomings.