The Negotiator
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Average rating3.8
Frederick Forsyth, master of the international thriller, retums with an electrifying story of a man of immense power and a conspiracy to crush the President of the United States. Only one man—Forsyth's most unforgettable hero yet—can prevent the plan from succeeding. His name is Quinn. He is the Negotiator. President Cormack is bent on a signing a sweeping U.S.-Soviet disarmament treaty, and the master conspirator is determined to stop him. The kidnapping of a young man on a country road in Oxfordshire is but the first brutal step in the explosive plot engineer the president's destruction. Enter Quinn. Quinn plays the kidnappers like a master musician. . . until, in a shocking tumabout, he discovers that ransom was not their objection after all—and that he has been lured into a cunningly woven web. Now he must draw upon his deepest strengths—to save not only the victim but the entire free world.
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Like all the best Forsyth novels, the first hundred pages or so are nothing but dudes sitting around reading reports and talking about international politics. And after that it's mostly just detailed explanations about the different subsections within British intelligence agencies. It's wonderful
Frequently wooden, occasionally terrible, prose; rather too much tell-not-show; an excess of cardboard characters; a big fat cliche involving a pretty FBI agent who wins the hero's heart; the road map of Europe described in excessive detail... this book is full of faults.
BUT! It's a cracking story! The pace, slow at first, builds to a fabulous crescendo. Forsyth's dialogue is crisp and on point, the way people actually talk. The twists keep you turning the pages until way past your bedtime. The research and detail that sometimes bog the book down also give it heft and substance, and you feel as if you've learned something from reading it. I ended up enjoying it far more than I thought I would at the start.
