Rain On The Dead

Jack Higgins

When the an attempt to assassinate former US President Jake Cazalet is prevented by the timely arrival of Sean Dillon and Captain Sarah Gideon of the British Security Services, they find themselves in the middle of the latest attempt by Al Qaeda to disrupt the West and cause as much chaos as possible.

The war is being fought around the world, in London, Paris, Ireland and the US in this book alone, and now it involves people from both Sean’s and Sarah’s pasts, on both sides of the conflict.

It’s been a while since I last read a book by Jack Higgins, but I remember him being a better writer than this. I’m not sure if the problem is because this is not the first book in the series, I don’t think so, however. There are some reasonable characters in this, and I accept that I’ve jumped into this series well after the beginning so I’ve probably missed a lot of character development, but they still seem to lack any real depth, which is a shame because I like what I see of them here.

The writing lets the book down as well, and it could so easily have been a cracker. The plot is not a bad one, it certainly has potential, but there are so many coincidences and convenient connections between the good guys and the bad that it isn’t long before they become unbelievable.

Further letting things does is the action sequences, which are all over with too quickly to provide any real sense of drama or danger; this is especially true of the ending, which left me feeling more than a little disappointed and cheated.

If you’re after a quick read that doesn’t need much concentration then go for it, otherwise, I’d advise finding something better.