The Killing Ground (Sean Dillon Series #14)

by Jack Higgins

Overview

Sean Dillon takes on a mission of mercy, in which he will be shown none.

Intelligence operative Sean Dillon stops Caspar Rashid at Heathrow Airport-and is pulled into danger. The man's daughter has been kidnapped by Rashid's own father and taken to Iraq to be married to one of the Middle East's most feared terrorists.

Rashid begs Dillon for help-but he has no idea of the terrible chain of events he is about to unleash, nor of the danger he is about to face.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780425224458
Publisher:	Penguin Publishing Group
Publication date:	11/04/2008
Series:	Sean Dillon Series , #14
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	448
Sales rank:	83,130
Product dimensions:	4.30(w) x 7.40(h) x 1.10(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Since The Eagle Has Landed—one of the biggest-selling thrillers of all time—every novel Jack Higgins has written has become an international bestseller. He has had simultaneous number-one bestsellers in hardcover and paperback, and many of his books have been made into successful movies, including The Eagle Has Landed, To Catch a King, On Dangerous Ground, Eye of the Storm, and Thunder Point. He has degrees in sociology, social psychology, and economics from the University of London, and a doctorate in media from Leeds Metropolitan University. A fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, and an expert scuba diver and marksman, Higgins lives in Jersey on the Channel Islands.

Editorial Reviews

Higgins pits series hero ex-IRA enforcer Sean Dillon, now British Intelligence's go-to guy on antiterrorism, against terrorists Hussein Rashid, better known as the Hammer of God. The Hammer's plan is to enter England, kill Dillon's boss and kidnap a 13-year-old who has been promised to him as a future bride. This is a familiar but engrossing cat-and-mouse game involving a vast assortment of British, Irish, American, Russian and Muslim players on both sides of the board. Christopher Lang's crisp rendition aids tremendously in following Higgins's constant shifts from the Hammer's progress to Dillon's attempts to halt it. Lang also possesses a talent for accents. It's fun listening to him handle the group chats, with lightning shifts from lilting brogue to clipped old Etonian, guttural grunts to staccato Middle Eastern twang. One can't ask for any more than that. Simultaneous release with the Putnam hardcover (Reviews, Nov. 5, 2007). (Feb.)

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Publishers Weekly

Can Sean Dillon & Co. blunt the Hammer of God and again save Western Civilization?When Caspar Rashid, a native of England with big-time Bedouin connections, is picked up in the passport line at Heathrow, no eyebrows or red flags are raised. Routine security measure, that's all, but as it happens Caspar's arrest is the opening move in a complex game of geopolitical chess. It's Dillon himself who puts the arm on Caspar. To his surprise, Dillon-whose place in the Clandestine Hall of Fame has long been reserved-discovers that Caspar is, in fact, eager to be arrested. He wants help, the down and dirty kind, the kind unhampered by niceties such as rules. If Casper can obtain what he needs, he's willing to swap certain sensitive information concerning al-Qaeda. Dillon & Co. rush to reassure him: "The only rules we have are not to have any." Turns out that Caspar's 13-year-old daughter has been kidnapped and spirited away to deepest Iraq-kidnapped by Caspar's cousin Hussein Rashid, the dreaded Hammer of God, a ferocious Muslim killer who sits at the right hand of Osama bin Laden, at the behest of Caspar's father, the rich and fanatical Abdul Rashid. Caspar wants her returned. And so an operation is mounted, Colts and Walthers bang away at targets endlessly available, body bags fill-can any other thrillmeister equal the Higgins corpse-per-page count?-and finally there's the obligatory O.K. Corral variation, during which, for the sake of us all, Dillon & Co. must nail the Hammer. Higgins' 37th (Bad Company, 2003, etc.): You get what you get.\

Kirkus Reviews