Rat Run

Mal Kitchen is a British soldier serving in Iraq. “Something” happens and everyone is quick to accuse him of being a coward. Back in the UK he is disowned by everyone and he wants nothing more that to be able to look at himself in the mirror.

He ends up in a run-down housing estate in London and through a series of events takes action against the drug pushers, dealers and suppliers. But he wants to go up the ladder and next is Ricky Capel, another “untouchable” not unlike “Mister” Albert Packer from the 2001 novel The Untouchable.

But the real thrust of the book is about an Al Qaeda “co-ordinator” who is threading his way through Europe towards England. There he will activate a number of sleeper agents who have found work at a football ground, an airport and, chillingly, studying the London underground.

But he has to get there first. An Albanian crime lord in Germany calls on Capel to facilitate the transfer using the trawler that normally carries drugs.

MI6 (post-WMD) is on to the co-ordinator. Mal Kitchen is onto Capel. Somewhere on the German coast they will meet.

Yet another excellent addition to my Seymour bookshelf. There’s a large cast of characters and part of the enjoyment is seeing the various stands of the story gradually come together. If I had a complaint it would be that the conclusion doesn’t quite live up to the momentum produced, but it’s a minor niggle.

On another note I would have been perfectly happy to read the ongoing battles of Mal Kitchen against the drug pushers in the housing estate. There are some genuinely amusing moments as you realise what exactly he has done.