Product Description

Set against a backdrop of the treacherous East/West German border, this tells of the journey into redemption for a disgraced British army officer who requires the defection of a top flight Soviet scientist.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #83029 in Books
• Published on: 2000-01-01
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 431 pages

From the Publisher
A thrilling classic from a master of the genre.

From the Back Cover
When a young Russian fakes his own death and defects from East Germany, his interrogators discover that his father, Otto Guttman, is a leading scientist working on Soviet missile systems. The British authorities need to persuade Otto to join his son in exchange for valuable intelligence.

Johnny Donoghue appears to be the right man for the job. He enjoyed a glittering career in the British Army until he was discharged for his involvement in the shooting of a young girl in Northern Ireland. Now a teacher in a small provincial town and living with his mother, it is not difficult to convince him to accept the mission to atone for past mistakes and to escape from the infernal boredom.

Donoghue can't know the dangers involved in crossing the German Border or how the fickle world of realpolitik will impinge on his task. And nothing can prepare him for the impact of the momentous decision that Otto has to make: whether to turn traitor and join the son he thought was dead, or to remain in Germany as the loyal and devoted subject they think him to be...

About the Author
Once a reporter for Independent Television News, Gerald Seymour has lived in the West Country for several years. His bestselling novels include Harry’s Game, The Glory Boys, Field of Blood, Killing Ground, A Line in the Sand, Holding the Zero, The Untouchable, Traitor’s Kiss, The Unknown Soldier, and Rat Run.

Customer Reviews

Redemption for Johnny
CONTRACT should be an object lesson to men on the perils of loving the wrong woman, although I'm sure author Gerald Seymour didn't intend it as such.

It's around 1980 in Switzerland, and a junior diplomat in the Soviet Embassy in Geneva, Willi Guttmann, is infatuated with an English girl working for the World Health Organization. And she claims she's pregnant. Honorable and smitten - mostly the latter - Willi stages a boating accident on Lake Geneva. Under the ruse of having drowned, he defects to England so he can be joined forever with his beloved. During Guttmann's debrief, MI6 learns that, while Willi has no inherent value, his father Otto is the brain behind a new, Soviet, anti-tank weapon. Using Willi as bait, the Secret Service hatches a plot to lure the 70-year old scientist into defecting to the West during an upcoming holiday that the old man will be taking with daughter Erica near the West German border. MI6 contracts with Johnny Donoghue to be point man in the extraction.

Seymour's thrillers are notable for their lack of clear-cut winners and losers in whatever confrontation is played out. CONTRACT has more tragic figures than any of the author's other books I've read. Donoghue is an ex-Army officer, cashiered after having mistakenly shot an innocent young woman while on surveillance duty in Northern Ireland. The court acquitted him of murder, but his career and reputation were ruined. Johnny now craves redemption with the government that gave him the boot. There's silly Willi, who has no idea of the misery he will cause. There's Erica, a spinster-in-training, who has no life but to care for her frail father. Then there's Ulf, a young East German recently demobbed from duty with the border guards. Ulf's in love with Jutte, and she's cajoled him into a joint bolt over the wire. Not tragic, but just bitter, is the anonymous functionary in the West German Federal Internal Security Service, who's still smarting from his treatment at the hands of the Brits at the end of WWII. He'll show them.

I've been raving about Gerald Seymour for years. He's equal to, if not better than, John le Carre in his ability to conjure up an entertaining espionage caper. His plots don't bog down, and his characters are eminently believable - just regular blokes with bills to pay, aging bodies, lackluster careers and/or nagging spouses endeavoring to do their duty to Queen and country, or their conscience, amidst perilous situations in grotty places. Sounds like a regular 9 to 5 to me.

An early cold war classic from Gerald Seymour.
This book has all the hallmarks of Gerald Seymour's later work. His portrayal of all of his characters helps the reader to identify with what is going through their minds as the plot develops. THE CONTRACT focuses on a disgraced army officer who goes over the East/West border on a mission to redeem his past. The book is well researched, having visited the Helmstadt border myself around the time the book is set, his description of the workings of the border is very accurate and you have to keep reminding yourself that it was just a few years ago that the wall came down! Johnny, the 'central character' does not quite come across as being a former officer, in fact on the jacket sleeve of my copy, he is described as being an ex-SAS sergeant! Trifling detail aside, THE CONTRACT is an excellent book, although I would recommend you read it before the authors later work.

How politicians play with lives !
The thrill of front-line secret-service action against political manipulation and betrayal all set against the backdrop of pre-glasnost East Germany. The suspense in the final chapters of the book reaches a crescendo.