The Engineer, an Iranian bomb maker, is being sought by the US and British spy services.  They believe that almost 80% of the injuries and losses suffered by US and British forces in Iran and Afghanistan are attributable to the bombs and IEDs that the Engineer developed and made and they want to stop him.  A small team of covert operatives has been tracking the Engineer down and they now have confirmation through DNA which has lead them to a man in Iran who they believe is the Engineer.  There are rumors that the Engineer has plans to leave the country which would make it easier to arrange a hit, so the British are tasked with finding surveillance specialists who can infiltrate into Iran and keep watch over the man suspected of being the Engineer and find out his travel plans.

Danny “Badger” Baxter is an expert at this kind of surveillance. The rules are simple:  Break up your shape;  Hide your smell;  Never show your silhouette;  Check the surfaces of your kit;  Space the movements of your team;  Use the shadows.  Until now the rules have kept him alive even while photographing the movements of Northern Ireland Republicans in Ulster or Islamic terrorists on the moors of Yorkshire.  Mostly he works alone and that is just fine with him.  But for this mission Badger needs to work with someone who knows the local language.  Although he is paired with another ex cop like himself, who supposedly wrote the book on surveillance techniques, Danny is uncertain about the capabilities of this rather fussy older man. What is certain, however, is that if anything does go wrong, Danny and his partner are on their own-theirs will be a deniable death.

Seymour is an excellent writer and his characters are fully realized with all their character flaws: even down to their annoying habits and tics. But he is also even handed, letting us see into the life of the Engineer and his family, and the driver that guards him making them full characters in their own right, even though they are “enemy.” Seymour is able to describe the marshlands where they set up their surveillance with such detail and accuracy that you can almost hear the sounds of the frogs and birds. Seymour paces his story with finesse, weaving storylines together so that you see the characters and the developing story from many different perspectives which pushes the story forward on many different levels.

Although, this is the first book I have read by Gerald Seymour it will most certainly not be my last and even with just this one book,  I almost have to agree with the Philadelphia Inquirer who called him the “best spy novelist ever!”

Brenda’s Rating *****(5 stars out of 5)

Recommend this book to: Sharon. Marian, Keith and Ken

Book Study Worthy: Yes

Read in ebook format.