The Watchman: an unstoppable action thriller from the Sunday Times bestselling author Chris Ryan - Softcover

Ryan, Chris

Softcover

ISBN 10: 009940608X ISBN 13: 9780099406082

Publisher: Arrow, 2002

Synopsis

SAS Captain Alex Temple is on an urgent mission. Someone has been murdering MI5 officers and it looks as if the killer is an insider, one of the Regiment's own. Alex's task is to track down and eliminate the killer, and to assist him he is assigned an MI5 liason officer - the attractive but abrasive Dawn Harding.

The body-count is mounting and a deadly and relentless manhunt begins. Soon Alex will learn the bitter truth: in the shadowy battlegrounds of the Intelligence wars there is no good and no evil - only winners and losers.

This relentless unputdownable thriller helps establish Chris Ryan as the master of no-holds-barred action storytelling.

About this title

Review:

Readers of Chris Ryan thrillers know exactly what to expect: gritty, pared-down prose with regular doses of bone-crunching action and a hero not usually given to introspection. His books do not inhabit the same atmospheric world as such thriller writers of the past as Graham Greene and Eric Ambler, and he lacks the political sophistication of such current writers as Gerald Seymour. But Ryan knows exactly what his readers want and can always be counted upon to deliver a tough and fast-moving package. And that's very much the case in this latest thriller.

The theme in The Watchman is a duel to the death between an SAS soldier and the man who trained him. Ryan's protagonist, the resourceful Alex Temple, has been recently commissioned from the ranks, and returns from a hostage rescue mission in Sierra Leone to find that someone has been gruesomely murdering MI5 officers, Hannibal Lecter-style (a skinning knife is involved). The security services believe that the killer is an insider, SAS-trained, and Alex is ordered to track him down. As he gets closer and closer to the eponymous Watchman, the body count rises inevitably. This one will glean no literary prizes, but the legion of Ryan fans will devour this as eagerly as they did The Hit List and Zero Option. The villain, too, is a memorably nasty creation. --Barry Forshaw

Review:

"First-rate action thriller" (Express)

"Pure, unadulterated violence-all part of the myth and mystique of the SAS" (Mirror)

"The SAS is to Chris Ryan what horse racing is to Dick Francis - a colourful backdrop of skulduggery, told with a genuine insider information to set it apart from the pack- Warrior class Sherlock Holmes." (Boys Toys)

"Fast-paced, sexy, violent" (Sunday Mercury)

About this edition

• Publisher: Arrow
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 009940608X
• ISBN 13: 9780099406082
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 432