Clive Egleton The Renegades

The Renegades

Clive Egleton

St. Martin's Minotaur, Mar 2006, $24.95, 352 pp.

ISBN 0312347456

In London in a chic Italian restaurant, someone enters and opens fire; a massacre occurs. Among the dead is a mid level British SAS intelligence agent. The SAS encourages the local police to think it is a drug deal gone bad with collateral damage, as they want the incident buried immediately.

While the police seem to be willing to accept the SAS explanation of the bloody event, internal troubleshooter Peter Ashton thinks why cover up an obvious assassination. He soon follows clues that connect the restaurant murders to terrorist financier Talal Asir, who has blood ties to the Saudi ruling family and was last observed in Damascus. As Ashton closes in on the truth, he soon regrets being one step too late to prevent suicide bombers from doing their destructive deeds at British consulates in Pakistan and Russia. Still he must stop further financing by Ashir and his "teller" Ali Mohammed Khalef before they finance the killing of more innocent lives.

THE RENEGADES grips the reader from the opening explosive lethal incident in a no longer quiet restaurant, and never slows down as Ashton struggles with his superiors and with a deadly, well placed and financed adversary to stop further senseless killings. The action packed storyline moves forward as readers accompany a desperate Ashton globe-hopping to prevent tragedies, but at times he is too late. Clive Egleton is at his take no prisoners best with this exhilarating Ashton anti-terrorism thriller.