Jack Higgins Without Mercy

Without Mercy

Jack Higgins

Putnam, August 2005, $25.95, 320 pp.

ISBN 0399153152

During a top secret operation sanctioned by England's Special Branch Chief General Ferguson, agent Sean Dillon killed several Provo IRA operatives. and Russian Major Greta Novikova. Russian Josef Belov, who used his multi-billion dollar company, to fund terrorism, also was killed. Special Branch thought Major Yuri Ashimov and Russian Major Greta Novikova were also killed but they survived. General Ferguson's aide Deputy Superintendent Hannah Bernstein was critically injured.

Ashimov wants revenge and is backed by President Putin in his desire because he saw too many of his plans and operatives destroyed by the Special Branch. In the hospital where Hannah is recuperating a nurse who is a sleeper agent in the IRA is ordered to kill her. She succeeds and is then killed by her handler. After a few more attempts are made on General Ferguson's agents they find out the two Russian agents are alive and pulling the strings of the IRA. Chasing each other half-way across the world, the adversaries vow to kill the enemy and only luck and skill will determine which side wins.

Jack Higgins never writes a dull book. His novels are always exciting so that readers can't turn the pages quickly enough to find out what happens next. One of the author's greatest talents is his ability to make cold blooded killing machines like Sean Dillon sympathetic to the reader. This book is one of Mr. Higgins' best novels to date and will definitely appear on the bestseller lists.

Harriet Klausner