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Title details for The Unknown Soldier by Gerald Seymour - Available

The Unknown Soldier

by Gerald Seymour
Simon Vance
Audiobook
1 of 1 copy available
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1 of 1 copy available

Hidden in the vastness of the Saudi Arabian desert, a camel caravan of fugitives moves slowly toward its goal. Deep in the sand and out of sight are the men they seek, leaders of Al Qaeda, regrouping to strike again. One man in the caravan stands out for his strength and self-discipline. His identity is masked, his past blanketed from memory. His obsession is to be briefed on his next target. Searching for him in the limitless sands are American and British counterterrorism experts with their sophisticated electronics. If they fail to find and kill him, if he receives his orders, he will disappear again to re-emerge in a teeming Western city with a suitcase bomb that will create the ultimate devastation.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    June 27, 2005

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9781483070490
      • File size: 471318 KB
      • Duration: 16:21:54

  • Languages

    • English

  • Levels

    • Text Difficulty: 10-12

  • Reviews

    • AudioFile Magazine
      In its deadly arsenal al Qaeda has lacked one tool, a white man, a European, willing to destroy himself for the cause, a suicide bomber as invisible in England as he would be in the Gaza Strip. Gerald Seymour imagines the parturition, training, and seasoning of just such a man. Treasured by the deadly brotherhood, he crosses desert wastes, stalked by the Predator, a U.S. airplane unmanned but not unarmed. He could kill a city. "You start with a suitcase, any suitcase." Simon Vance has a plum pudding of a voice, beautiful to listen to, but somehow inappropriate for Americans, or Arabs. Despite the casting flaw, this remains a first-rate thriller, meticulously imagined and forcefully performed. B.H.C. (c) AudioFile 2001, Portland, Maine
    • Publisher's Weekly

      January 10, 2005
      The plot of Seymour's skilled thriller could be a contemporary headline—"Al Qaeda Terrorist Escapes; Allies Pursue Through Desert"—but it wouldn't communicate the depth and density of the novel, which gets so deep under the skin of its characters that it's more impressive for its portraits of people caught in thorny situations than it is for its race-against-the-clock suspense story. The narrative begins with a man named Caleb, aka Abu Khaleb, fleeing to the mountains of Afghanistan. Captured by American soldiers, he passes himself off as a taxi driver pining to get back to his family. Released after nearly two years at Guantánamo, this so-called "peasant from up-country" escapes from the soldiers taking him back to Kabul. Gradually, Seymour reveals the truth: this everyman is a terrorist mastermind, and the family he seeks to return to is his al-Qaeda cell, which plans to use him as the triggerman for a dirty bomb targeted for a major city. Pursuing this British-born terrorist with his "shitty little heart filled with hate" are crackerjack American pilots of unmanned planes, Marty and Lizzie-Jo, as well as British spook Eddie Wroughton, who's squeezing a spineless doctor for info, among others. Although his plot simmers more than boils, Seymour (The Untouchable
      ; Killing Ground
      ; etc.) offers an engrossing and thought-provoking look at an all-too-possible crisis. Agent, Sterling Lord Literistic. 75,000 first printing; $75,000 marketing budget.

    • AudioFile Magazine
      This tense thriller seems all too plausible. A mastermind of terrorism escapes into the desert of Afghanistan. His pursuers race against time to prevent him from reaching his al Quaeda cell and perpetrating a major disaster. British narrator Crispin Redman sounds like one of the voices one hears in travelogues describing beautiful or awe-inspiring vistas. Here, the vistas being redolent with danger, Redman pours on the dramatic juice to great effect. His characterizations, particularly of the villains and the comic relief, are a bit broad. Otherwise, he never lets the listener forget there's not a moment to lose. Y.R. (c) AudioFile 2006, Portland, Maine

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

Levels

  • Text Difficulty:10-12

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