Product Description

As 'Scarecrow' Schofield watches his mission to take out a secret missile dump in Siberia turn into a bloodbath, he discovers he has been tricked and is now the prey rather than the predator. An international consortium of staggering power and wealth has included his name on a mystery list of fifteen targets to be eliminated without fail by twelve noon on 31 December.

Now every high-powered bounty hunter on the planet is on his trail. While Schofield battles to evade them on every side, he must simultaneously track down the perpetrators of a conspiracy that could soon reduce many of the major cities of the world to ashes. And behind that lies a secret agenda even more terrifying ...

From arctic Russia to the Afghan border, from France's Atlantic coast to a speed-of-light conflict over the Suez Canal, every form of ultra-tech weaponry comes into play in a spellbinding action drama that unfolds within a mere twenty-four hours.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #252012 in Books
• Published on: 2003-10-03
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 448 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
With Scarecrow Matthew Reilly goes further than ever before into the supercharged adrenalin, high-testosterone thrillers that have become his trademark. His heroes constantly strain plausibility with their feats of stunt-driving and snappy shooting; with their hair-breadth escapes and entire ruthlessness. His series hero, "Scarecrow" Schofield finds himself on a list of the bravest soldiers and most wanted terrorists on the planet, pursued by mercenaries and bounty hunters who want nothing but to take his head. This is a book full of outrageous conspiracies and a villain with a taste for microwaving his victims, boiling them in oil and throwing them to the sharks. It's a fairground ride of a thriller that zips along at a cracking pace from the icy coasts of Siberia to the caves of Afghanistan, the glass towers of London's Dockland and the treacherously hairpin roads of the Brittany coast. Reilly builds constantly--this is a book whose tension and action sequences escalate well past the point normally called over the top. This is a book full of ingenious ultra-violence in which everyone is at risk--Reilly is a gaudy writer but never a stupid one or one who fails to follow through his own plot logic. --Roz Kaveney

Waterstone's Books Quarterly, September 2003
The pace is breakneck... will hook you right from the start...

Arena, October 2003
This is unashamedly ball-busting reading... it certainly clears the palette...

Customer Reviews

Outrageous and entertaining to the end
Matthew Reilly admits that he set out to make this book a faster book that was more densely packed with plot than his previous books. Unbelievably, considering how action-packed his earlier books were, not only has he done it, but this book has stepped the action-thriller up a couple of notches. It's action on steroids.

Shane 'Scarecrow' Schofield is one of 15 targets of a worldwide bounty hunt. The bounty on each target's head is over $18 million, enough to lure the best bounty hunters in the world and setting up a series of showdowns of monumental proportions. Scarecrow pretty quickly finds himself with 2 primary objectives. The first and most obvious is to try to stay alive. The second is to try to save the world. After all, what self-respecting super-thriller hasn't got a hero-saves-the-world scenario?

As has been proven in the 2 earlier Schofield romps, he's a hard man to kill and can get out of every hopeless situation, usually with fractions of seconds to spare and this book is certainly no different.

Know this before you start the book. The premise is so totally outrageous the book could probably be listed in the fantasy section. But that's not the point. The point is, it's meant to be 100 per cent action and non-stop entertainment and that's what it delivers. If you're not prepared to totally suspend belief for around 450 pages for the sake of a rollicking good adventure then you shouldn't even start this book.

one too many...?
Before I start, I am a big fan. Having stumbled across Ice Station several years ago now I was hooked on Scarecrow, and Reilly from day 1. Ever since I have kept an ear to the ground, (and Reilly's web site)to check on details of forthcoming books, and have really enjoyed the escapism through Temple to Contest. However, escapism is great up to a point, but from half way through Scarecrow it all began to get a bit too much. He went from always being one step ahead of death, to always being one step away from being alive.

The thing I like about Reilly is that you look forward to the end of the chapter and the drama moving on at pace. In Scarecrow I found myself switching off at the end of the chapter as it just wasn't 'real'.

Am glad it wasn't the first book of his I picked up as I wouldn't have read more, and I would have missed out on the others.

Fantastic, action packed thriller
Having read all of Matthew Reilly's books, I was worried this wouldn't live up to his promise to make his next book faster and more exciting than anything before. But I'm glad to say he does. I read this last night in a single sitting, I just couldn't put it down. Scarecrow is a fantastic character and lots of my other favourites return, especially Mother who gets some fabulous scenes. This book does remind me of a movie, I could picture it all in my head as the writing is really vivid. The book introduces some great new characters, and provides a fascinating take on the bounty hunters. One of these, The Black Knight, is especially well written. The author isn't afraid of writing hard stories as well, I won't ruin the plot, but be prepared for a big surprise.

I totally enjoyed this book, its a great read and each chapter left me anxious to get to the next one so I could find out what happened next.

Happily for his fans, Matthew Reilly also reveals he has signed a new 2 book deal, so there will be more of this to come - I can't wait.