He previously featured in The Crocodile Hunter (in which he dodged imminent retirement by singlehandedly apprehended a would be suicide bomber) and The Foot Soldiers (in which he was loaned to sister service MI6 to help investigate an apparent leak). It starts as a slow burner but the pace accelerates gradually into a shatteringly tense, exciting climax. Character driven clever descriptive imaginative and intelligent, and totally engaging from first to last page, with the tension building with every turn of the page.

He is something of an anti-hero, who cares little for his perceived persona but a great deal for the team he directs into danger. As in earlier novels, Merrick acts as a lone wolf and manages to antagonise senior officers in parts of the UK’s law enforcement agencies outside MI5. My thanks to the Author publisher's and NetGalley for providing me with a Kindle version of this book to read and honestly review. In the 3rd book in the series he is tasked in regards to an OCG (organised crime group) a sleepy backwater of SIS, out of sight and out of mind scenario. This is as always a superbly crafted thriller, yet so real, you can envisage getting stuck behind Merrick's caravan!I felt that the author was attempting to go down the Frederick Forsyth/John le Carre route re espionage, but it didn't really come off. In 1999, he featured in the Oscar-winning television film, One Day in September, which portrayed the Munich Olympics massacre. Jonas Merrick in his Smiley-esque role is a slow moving puller of strings but the book travels at a fast pace, not least because of the episodic structure of the writing, which means keeping the reader's wits alert as each scene changes. London: Jonas Merrick, grey and quiet, alone in a small office, seems an unlikely character to be tasked with bringing down an international drug network. The set up is deftly drawn (drugs shipment due to land in Spain), the characters established early on but then not much happens for a very long time.

In this novel, however, he has found himself moved from handling potential security threats to dealing with organised crime groups and one Liverpool-based one in particular.

My favourite character was the "hero" Jonas Merrick, a beautifully understated "conductor", masterminding events from his nondescript backroom lair. As usual in my reviews, I will not rehash the plot or the publisher's blurb - instead I highly recommend that you read this for yourself. He always sets out good plots but his writing style is starting to irritate with his insistence on using three or four similes when one will do and how he painfully tries to avoid clichés. I understand that this is the third book in a series - although I haven't read the earlier novels, I felt that this book worked just fine as a standalone.

I did wonder that if this manuscript had come from someone without this reputation, would Hodder and Stoughton have been so keen to publish? As usual our hero to the possible detriment to his own health gets a little too close to the action.

The only drag back for me is despite a great lead character and plausible supporting cast and storylines, the big crescendo that is seemingly built up never arrives. Yet Seymour also endows him with two endearing character traits - his desire to be in on the action at the sharp end, despite his physical limitations that should restrict him to his behind the scenes role, and his angst at the impact his plans will inevitably have on the sometimes entirely innocent people who are caught up in the operations he plans. However he again retains his deep engagement and concern with those agents undercover at the front line.