A Darker Place

By Jack Higgins (HarperCollins, RRP: $34.99)

 

Relevant offers

Thrillers & Mysteries

Blood Count Cold Blood Undercover Red Wolf Last Chance to Die The Fall The Covenant of Genesis The Last 10 Seconds Bound Shaolin Burning

Billed as "the return of the legend, the new Sean Dillon thriller", one of the central mysteries in the latest Jack Higgins offering concerns our hero's fleeting presence.

It doesn't much matter, though; even sans Sean there is enough happening between the covers of this 360-page tome to keep the brain-cells on high alert, if only to follow the plot. Which is as follows. Disillusioned with the Putin government, famous Russian writer and former paratrooper Alexander Kurbsky decides he wants to defect to the West – specifically London.

Having seen too many of his countrymen die mysteriously at the hands of the "thuggish" Russian security services, however, he is under no illusions about how the news will be greeted at home. With many a cunning move, as we later see, Kurbsky makes elaborate plans for his escape and concealment. It's a real coup for the West. Or is it? Is he still working for the Russians? Yep.

The plan is to infiltrate British and American intelligence at the "highest levels", and Kurbsky has his own motivations for doing the most effective job possible. "He does not care what he has to do or where he has to go ... or whom he has to kill," as the grammatically correct blurb puts it.

Although the master craftsman's powers of suspense may be ebbing, his sense of humour is not, which is a plus in my book. Mr Higgins will have you engrossed,whether trapped in an aircraft or sprawling on a beachside deckchair.

That said, the book ends with a whimper rather than a bang.

- © Fairfax NZ News