The Dealer and the Dead - Softcover

Seymour, Gerald

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0340918918 ISBN 13: 9780340918913

Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton, 2010

Synopsis

Eighteen years after the barbarous war with the Serbs that tore their communities apart, a group of Croatian villagers discover the identity of the Englishman who they believe betrayed them by welching on a deal to supply arms.

With revenge in sight at last, they hire a professional killer from London to track him down . . . but is the story as simple as they think?

A brilliant, bruising thriller, told in a unique way, about what happens when the hand of the past suddenly reaches out to the present - and is holding a gun.

About this title

Review:

In a Croatian village near Vukovar, a body is unearthed in a field – that of an arms dealer. Nearly twenty years earlier, a betrayal had taken place, involving the dead man: the besieged villagers had been desperately waiting for an arms shipment that never arrived -- arms that would have given them a chance against the Serbs moving against them. But there was no delivery, and the village fell. The philosophy of the villagers is that revenge is a dish best served cold, and now knowing the identity of the person who betrayed them, they draw plans for payback. In England, arms dealer Harvey Gillott is about to be drawn into a dangerous situation – and he will find that the past has a very long reach.

This is the intriguing premise of The Dealer and the Dead, and it will prompt the customary noises of admiration for its author, Gerald Seymour. Enthusiasts often make extravagant claims for their favourite authors, but discerning thriller readers can safely say that the best practitioner currently working in the UK is the veteran Seymour. He is, quite simply, the most intelligent and accomplished in the current field, and even his misfires (of which there aren’t many) are more interesting than most of the competition. Here, we have a typically compromised Seymour anti-hero, a masterfully organised globe-spanning narrative and a mass of highly persuasive detail. When so many novelists are content with shop-worn plots, Seymour always manages to create fresh and original protagonists, and weaves for them situations that are unlike anything he (or his peers) has come up with before. The Dealer and the Dead is Seymour firing on all cylinders, and his rivals need, once again, to look to their laurels. --Barry Forshaw

Review:

In a class of his own (The Times on THE WAITING TIME)

A dense, intensely satisfying thriller from one of the modern masters of the craft, Seymour's latest novel will remind the world just how phenomenally accomplished a thriller writer he is. (Daily Mail on THE COLLABORATOR)

A forceful, kinetic narrative (Independent on THE COLLABORATOR)

Tight writing and meticulous research . . . an artist's brush that lingers equally on the grime, the glitter and the blood (Peter Millar, The Times on THE COLLABORATOR)

Intricately researched incidents that surge to a dramatic crescendo (Telegraph on THE COLLABORATOR)

A superb feat of storytelling by a master of his craft (Sunday Telegraph on THE UNKNOWN SOLDIER)

A genuinely exciting epic (Daily Telegraph on THE UNTOUCHABLE)

About this edition

• Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton
• Publication date: 2010
• ISBN 10: 0340918918
• ISBN 13: 9780340918913
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 464