The Unknown Soldier

by Gerald Seymour

Book Overview

No Synopsis Available.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1585677523
• ISBN13: 9781585677528
• Release Date: March 2006
• Publisher: Overlook Press
• Length: 400 Pages
• Weight: 0.85 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 6.1" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

SEYMOUR, The Unknown Writer

Mention Le Carre, Forsyth, Deighton there will be a roar of approbation, drop Littell and Charles McCarry into the mix, a few murmurs of appreciation, then gush about Gerald Seymour and get - very little! A shame, as he has an uncanny mixture of reporter's sense of fact, of cause and effect, the ability to convey breathless excitement and impending disaster, a sense of character and language, whichever country or politics prevail, and most of all a strong moral sense of what is true courage and sacrifice and what is fear and cowardice, loyalty and pride, deep love and understanding and how they can all exist in one person. You must read him.

Shades of John le Carre

In the aftermath of the recent London Transport bombings, THE UNKNOWN SOLDIER has a topical theme. Caleb is a terrorist wannabe - a graduate of an Al Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan. But his bad luck resulted in his capture by American troops and incarceration at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where for many months he successfully maintained the cover of being a simple taxi diver caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. Finally, released as a PR gesture and returned to Afghanistan under guard, Caleb escapes before he can be handed over to the Afghani Security Service, and immediately starts the long journey to rejoin his Al Qaeda "family" now holed up in the Rub' al Khali desert of Saudi Arabia, otherwise known as the "Empty Quarter". Because Caleb is not an Arab, but rather an Outsider, he's to be given a special mission. There is little in the way of "thriller" in THE UNKNOWN SOLDIER, a variance from the usual Gerald Seymour novel that may put off some of his fans. Rather, this novel resembles those penned by John le Carre in that it's relatively heavy on character development (Caleb's) and the sometimes plodding nature of intelligence work, and short on sustained action. Indeed, most of the plot involves Caleb's torturous camel journey across the searing hot Empty Quarter in the company of three other Al Qaeda foot soldiers, a Bedouin guide, and the latter's young son - all dedicated to delivering their precious charge to the organization's remote HQ. The opposition is represented by Marty and Lizzy-Jo, two young CIA operatives searching the Rub' al Khali for evidence of terrorists with cameras mounted on the remotely-controlled Predator drones they fly out of a remote desert base, Juan Gonsalves, the CIA's Riyadh station chief, Juan's MI6 counterpart, Eddie Wroughton, who finds himself on the short end of the Anglo-American "special relationship", and Jed Dietrich, Caleb's Defense Intelligence Agency interrogator back in Gitmo. Jed was on vacation when the CIA and the FBI decided to cut Caleb loose, and now, after belatedly winkling out a clue as to the taxi driver's true identity, Jed is determined to rectify that mistake regardless of the peril to his career by being the bearer of bad news to his superiors. I'm awarding THE UNKNOWN SOLDIER four stars because I've long been an admirer of the le Carre style, which eschews sensationalism. However, in consciously or unconsciously emulating le Carre, Seymour has done something I've not seen in any of his other books, i.e., leave a glaring loose end that would seem to invite a sequel. But, since that's not been the author's style to date, I fear I'm left here with a book that has a somewhat unsatisfying ending. In all other respects, however, THE UNKNOWN SOLDIER is vintage Seymour in that it contains real-world characters engaged in a struggle that results in a Pyrrhic victory, if indeed victory is achieved at all.

Fiction again becomes fact

Gerald Seymour is up to his usual "who will win" tricks in this marvelous story of the West versus Al-Quaida. The story line is plucked directly from the London bombings of July, 2005, but as Tom Clancy predicted events and methodology before 9-11, so does Seymour in "The Unknown Soldier". This book was written before more than 300 were killed or wounded on the London Transit System by suicide bombers who were British-born. That event makes this book all the more shocking."Do you have enough hate?" Caleb is asked. The answer, as well as the explanation, should perturb all readers, for both are around us, no matter the Western cities in which we live.From Camp Delta at Guantanamo Bay to CIA Predator drones over the Middle East, Seymour blends the current with the frighteningly possible. The ending is typical Seymour, for the good guys don't always win in his stories. "The Unknown Soldier" is as much a wake-up call as it is a great read. There are not many authors in this genre today who can match Seymour for his style of writing, as well as the detailed research and his application of that to the politics of today's world. There are no disappointments in this cracking tale.

Very good, but with a few thin spots.

Having spent time in Afghansitan and in the Middle East for a non-governmental organization for a while this past winter, I was primarily attracted to the cultural insigts suggested by the descriptions of this novel. I agree with another review posted here that Mr. Seymour has a difficult time with American dialog, and his American and female characters are a tad thin. Let's face it, even his terrorist-to-be character is a Brit. With a wealth of American and foreign military and aid workers making up the complexion of current-day Afghanistan and some of the Middle-Eastern countries, it would have been nice to have some "more normal" middle-of-the-road-type characters, more like the Beth character (let's face it, not all Muslims hate Westerners and probably not all foreign-service people are as mentally simple or shallow as most depicted in the book...---most tend to be pretty perceptive and eclectic, it goes with the territory). Additionally, in the beginning of the book when Caleb escapes into the trees along the Charikar to Kabul road, that is a bit of a stretch since there are a few orchards and vineyards around there, but it is pretty much devoid of trees...---high plains, just gravel, rocks, some abandoned shipping containers turned into roadside shops, a village or two and scattered houses in walled compounds, and lots and lots of landmines on either side of the road. It would have been more believable if the guards had decided not to chase Caleb due to an non-de-mined stretch of roadside, for that matter, if you have to pee, as Caleb did, one does it on the road, not the side of the road. However, I found the book a great read and very much in the Lecarre' vein. This book really shines with respect to defining the motivation and psychological mindset of a terrorist functionary, and how a functionary would be spotted and recruited. If there had been a little more historical context for the ant-westernism it could have added a bit more contextual meat to the story; I highly recommend Bernard Lewis's excellent "The Crisis of Islam" for additional background reading. I was a little disappointed at how the U.S. intelligence community and the Guantanamo Base operations were protrayed, but for all I actually know of those communities, those depictions could be accurate, but I doubt it. Likewise, although I realize this is not a Tom Clancy book, a bit more technological insight into the Predator and Hellfire systems, particularly Hellfire targeting, since it is an important part of the story, would have been welcomed. I should note that this is the first book I have read by Mr. Seymour; however, I'd seen the BBC production of "Harry's Game" years ago, and I first encountered his written work in, of all places, Jalalabad Afghanistan! A tattered paperback of "Holding the Zero" was in the NGO's lunchroom. I was really impressed with the historical and written quality of Holding the Zero, a treatment of the Iran-Iraq conflict; as well as

Timely Al-Qaeda suspense

The Al-Qaeda terrorist network recruits a brilliant British national and they have specific plans to wreak havoc on their Western enemies. British and U.S. intelligence need to stop the terrorists at all costs. Thus we have the Unknown Soldier. In this frenetic information-rich world, hot news events change so rapidly that novels about such events quickly become dated and lose their edge. Not so with Unkown Soldier. Author Gerald Seymour has been around for many years and it shows in his writing. The plotting of this novel is as smooth and consistent as the Middle Eastern lifestyle where most of this novel is set. While the suspense here is palpable, the action is not forced and the characters don't lose their integerity for the sake of an exciting plot twist. Don't misunderstand. There are plenty of surprises in this book to avoid boring the reader, but they come about naturally and believably from the beginning of the story to its somewhat startling end. The material (with the exception of an Afghanistan focus, rather than Iraq) is so timely that I found myself more focused on current military actions in the Middle East than before. Seymour is British and, as such, his plot features British military intelligence as much as American intelligence. This is refreshing. And the book borders on literary fiction as the plotline examines the war on terrorism from both the terrorist view and the Western view. The intelligent reader will enjoy the chance to think. Readers seeking slam-bang action, larger-than-life heroes and a rose-tinted world with tidy endings will likely not enjoy this novel. This is a book of realistic fiction about a real war in real time highly recommended for those who enjoy quality fiction centered around current events.