A Deniable Death
The Engineer, a brilliant Iranian bombmaker, may be responsible for 80 percent of the coalition casualties in the Iraq War. Tiny bits of intelligence—DNA from a sneeze—have given the British a tentative identification of the elusive terrorist. They want to “take the bastard down,” so they decide on “covert surveillance”—that is, snipers without sniper weapons—to confirm the identification. Mismatched men, both former policemen, are assigned to hide in a steamy, treeless marshland on the Iran-Iraq border to do that. If they succeed, an Israeli assassin will perform the kill—a deniable death. But this is a Gerald Seymour novel (Timebomb, 2012), and no brief plot précis can adequately explain the author’s métier. Each character noted above, as well as 10 others, must overcome their fears, flaws, and frailties to fulfill their various roles. Seymour’s characteristically granular detail—about bird life in the marshland, the tiny bits of information that compel the surveillance, the personalities of the characters—is not only fascinating but also prolongs the suspense. --Thomas Gaughan