Product Description

Five breathtaking tales from the greatest storyteller of them all.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #82772 in Books
• Published on: 2002-09-02
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 464 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
Frederick Forsyth has been in danger recently of becoming better known for his splenetic political tirades than for his superlative thrillers, and it's to be hoped that he'll spend more time turning out books as gripping as The Veteran than cultivating his image as a radio pundit. After all, this is what he does best.

Forsyth changed the face of the modern thriller with The Day of the Jackal, and the marriage of brilliantly realised detail and tight-as-a-drum narrative has become the industry standard ever since. This collection of five tales shows he has not lost his skill, and each reads like a perfectly turned mini-novel, rich in sharply drawn protagonists and wasting nary a word in delivering the goods. In the title tale, a canny lawyer finds himself acting for guilty men after a savage inner-city killing; in The Art of the Matter, destructive double-dealing is dispensed within the plush board rooms of a prestigious auction house; and in The Miracle a traveller en route to the brutal experience of the Palio horse race in Siena has his life changed by a supernatural incident. The range of these pieces is wide (even including a tale about a survivor of the massacre of Custer's troops at Little Bighorn), but all are brought off with the effortless skill that has always been the author's trademark:

From even closer range a Sioux warrior rose from the long grass, pointed an ancient flintlock musket at Craig and fired. He had clearly used too much black powder in an effort to achieve the increased range. Worse, he had forgotten to remove the ramrod. The breech exploded with a roar and a sheet of flame, shattering the man's right hand to pulp. If he had been firing from the shoulder he would have lost most of his head...

Synopsis
A collection of five heart-stopping stories from the master thriller writer. A miracle in war-torn Siena that begins with the persecution of a young nun in the turbulent days of the sixteenth century and culminates in the bitter German retreat from Italy; a drug smuggling heist on an international flight where the Knock pit their wits against the smugglers; a brural urban murder, where a brilliant QC decides to defend the killers, resulting in a startling justice; an incandescent art scam at a famous London auction house, and a brilliantly plotted revenge that shatters the elegant world of the Old Masters - each story is a remarkable tour de force. And above all here is a brilliant novella, 'Whispering Wind', which begins with the single survivor of Custer's Last Stand at the battle of Little Big Horn. Then follows the rescue from rape and murder of a Cheyenne girl and a flight across the mountains and forests of the West, ending in a savage present-day manhunt in the wild lands of Montana.

From the Back Cover
FORSYTH PRESENTS FIVE BRILLIANTLY INGENIOUS TALES OF MURDER, JUSTICE, INTRIGUE AND REVENGE

A miracle in war-torn Siena that begins with the persecution of a young nun in the turbulent days of the sixteenth century and culminates in the bitter German retreat from Italy; a drug smuggling heist on an international flight where the Knock pit their wits against the smugglers; a brutal urban murder, where a brilliant QC decides to defend the killers, resulting in a startling justice; an incandescent art scam at a famous London auction house, with a brilliantly plotted revenge that shatters the elegant world of Old Masters - each story is a remarkable tour de force.

And above all here is a brilliant novella, 'Whispering Wind', which begins with the single survivor of Custer's Last Stand at Little Big Horn and ends in a savage present-day manhunt in the wild lands of Montana.

By the bestselling author of ICON, FIST OF GOD, THE DAY OF THE JACKAL, THE FOURTH PROTOCOL

Customer Reviews

Forsythe is great
This is a collection of five short stories, and though I was disappointed in a couple of them the title story is every bit as good as any of Forsythe's regular thrillers. The stories all have a sting in the tale which makes them well worth reading but difficult to review without giving too much away. The veteran in the title is kicked to death whilst walking through a London housing estate, investigating officer Jack Burns builds up a good case for the prosecution but does not anticipate the devious tactics of the defence counsel.

Two Great Stories, Two Lame Stories, One Cliche Novella
I loved Forsyth's earlier collection "No Comebacks" and was looking forward to the five stories here. While each is well written, they vary wildly in plotting and overall quality. Throughout, Forsyth takes the reader inside particular settings which are almost as interesting as the stories. The first two are top-notch stuff, great, nasty 70-80 page fables that would translate very well onto the large screen. The middle two stories are shorter shaggy-dog pieces (about 35 pages each) whose twists are far too obvious. The last piece is a somewhat polarizing 140 page novella set in Montana that readers will probably either love or find tiresome (as I did).

The book kicks off with an Indian shopkeeper in London witnessing the mugging of an elderly man (who later dies) by two street thugs. The story is followed through the police inspector assigned to the case, who must locate the two killers and find out who the old man was. Once this is accomplished, the case proceeds to the courts, where it looks to be an open and shut case with the eyewitness, fingerprints, everything. However, when a high-powered barrister takes the case of the two thugs pro bono, it becomes a lot more uncertain whether or not justice will prevail. I won't give away the resolution, but it's excellent.

The second story is just as strong, and takes place in the rarified world of London auction houses. Here we meet a struggling middle-aged bit player in films, an odious piece of the upper crust, and a self-made young man from the hinterlands, whose intersection results in a classic con caper with a lot of humor. The inside look at auction houses is fascinating, and the supporting cast of appraisers, computer hackers, forgers, and others completes the rich setting. Those who enjoy tales of scams, cons, and greedy people getting their just desserts will love this.

"The Miracle" is mostly a lengthy monologue delivered by a man in Siena to a pair of American tourists who happen by his courtyard on festival night. He weaves them a tale about World War II and the Allied drive up Italy that pushed the Germans out of Sienna, and the miracle that occurred in that very courtyard. As with all the stories, there's a twist, but just not a very surprising one. "The Citizen" attempts to build suspense from a trio of passengers on board a flight from Bangkok to England and the question of which of them might be smuggling drugs. The red herrings are all too obvious and the story kind of fizzles out.

The final piece, "Whispering Wind", starts off as a fairly standard slice of historical fiction about the lone white survivor of Custer's army at the Battle of Little Big Horn. This time the twist is in the middle however, and the reader suddenly finds himself in a Rip Van Winklesque time-travel story. The conceit is that a century later, the characters from the first half of the story must play out unfinished business. Forsyth has obviously researched the old West and is having fun with the sci-fi elements of the story, but it is utterly lacking in the fine characterization that made the first two stories in the book so fun to read. Instead, the protagonist, his love interest, his foes, and basically all the characters, are archetypes, and thus it's hard to get too involved with them.

So, while all are enjoyable on a certain level for the atmospheric detail Forsyth brings to them, only the first two are really worth reading. Those with a strong interest in Siena may enjoy "The Miracle" and those with a strong interest the old West may find "Whispering Wind" diverting, but most will be better served skipping those.

Shows another side to Frederick Forsythe
Four short stories three of which would bear expanding into full-length novels and/or TV films and the fourth (The Miracle) which would have made a great "Tales of the Unexpected". Then there's the novella "Whispering Wind" - I suspect that most die-hard Forsythe fans will be a little shocked here but if for those who enjoy a bit of fantasy it's a very well written finale. Another reviewer has compared these stories to O. Henry and no problems there, you might also say that the scope of the stories and the characterisations made whole in just a few lines from a writer more used to full-length intrigue bear comparison to a modern day Dickens or Hardy. In the same vein as the short stories of Jeffrey Archer but these are immeasurably better even if the last will not please everybody (though it will delight some). As far as deviation from his norm I'd say that Frederick Forsythe has done here much what Steven King did with Hearts in Atlantis - he has created characters with charm and human interest, combining an ear for dialogue with a gift for description but letting go of a genre with which he has been associated throughout his career and choosing instead to explore new horizons. I think it works but it isn't the same reading experience as a Cold War cloak and dagger drama, so don't be surprised.