by Jack Higgins
Published in 2008 by G.P. Putnam's Sons
Summary and Review: This is the 14th installment of the Sean Dillon series about the IRA provisional enforcer that has become part of the Prime Minister of Great Britain's personal team of anti-terrorism/spies/assassins/whatever needs to be done regardless of the rule of law/charming, romantic heroes. The group is lead by General Ferguson and is made up of miscreants from around the world that have been recruited into this business or particularly thwarting terrorist attacks and plots. This book, The Killing Ground, deals specifically with their confronting a terrorist renowned in the Middle East as the Hammer of God. The story has a lot of disjointed pieces that never coalesce together and the characters, which he begins to develop at the start of the book are never really finished. There is an assassination attempt on Blake Johnson, another key character in the series, that is thwarted in the first chapter but never revisited, nor does Blake return in the story. The Hammer of God begins behaving in ways that suggests he is tired of the killing and could even stop being a terrorist, but that conflict is never resolved. The young lady who is kidnapped and then rescued seems to be wrestling with identity issues that could lead her to one day becoming a profound voice for peace or a frantically terrorist, but again nothing.
The book is written in typical Higgins style. The humor, the romanticism, the quick pace, so it is a quick read, but the story and plot never tie together in ways that his previous installments have so this book leaves you unsatisfied. It is a book in the series at this point that if you didn't read it you would not be missing anything. If I am being honest, the book reads more like someone trying to turn out a quick new installment to capitalize on sales rather than trying to put out a "good" book.
Reading Recommendation: As hard is this is to believe in that I generally really enjoy Higgins' Sean Dillon stories, I have to vote "No" on this one as the ending just fails the book and there really isn't a cohesive story.
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