The Deceiver

A thriller written by Frederick Forsyth in 1991
Reviewed edition by Bantam from 1992
A paperback has 480 pages
ISBN 0-553-29742-2

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The book consists of four independent stories describing achievements of Sam McCready, an SIS spy. McCready is to be forced into an early retirement and the stories are recalled in an attempt to reverse the retirement verdict.

The first story in the book is placed in Germany (both East and West) in the 1980's. A Red Army general offers to disclose a top-secret document to McCready, but insists on meeting the SIS agent in East Germany. This is a problem for McCready, who is a persona non grata there. He decides to send a replacement, but things do not work out quite right ...

The second story takes place in England. A KGB major runs over to CIA, rising suspicions of the British secret service because of the manner of his desertion. The KGB major indicates someone within CIA is leaking information. Although all proofs seem to confirm this, McCready suspects the major of playing a game with CIA ...

The third story describes McCready foiling an attempt of colonel Qaddafi to supply a large amount of weapons and explosives to the IRA in a retribution for England's assistance in U.S. bombing of Lybia.

In the fourth and final story, McCready prevents a takeover of a Caribbean island by a gang of international criminals acting under a guise of governor candidates.

Review

Virtually unrelated, the four stories are slightly over a hundred pages each, which is not very much compared to other Frederick Forsyth's novels. Consequently, there is not much room for plot twists and surprises, which I have come to like in his other books. Nonetheless, there is still suspense aplenty, with details such as real names of many people and places adding a nice realistic feeling to the text.

One thing I find peculiar is the apparent resignation of McCready to his forced retirement. The four stories depict him as a man that fights even after everyone else has thrown in a towel, but the interim chapters show McCready almost apathetic to the retirement verdict. This failure to act kind of spoils the atmosphere of the four stories.

Rated as average by Ceres on 1998-09-14

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