Stephen Leather (http://www.stephenleather.com/) has been entertaining us for nearly 20 years with his novels of crime, imprisonment, military service, and terrorism. He’s certainly tapped into the zeitgeist because our daily news is saturated with crime, war, terrorism, death and destruction. Every night brings further gory detail about the bloodbath in The Middle East. The appetite for it cannot be sated.
The latest dish for your delectation is Takedown. The summary is as follows. A British Special Forces soldier goes rogue, carrying out an attack at a US army base in Syria. It leads to the death of two men. Ex-MI5 controller Charlotte Button is hired to work out what the soldier’s plan is, and to ‘take him down’ before he can do further damage.
When the man returns to the UK it looks like the threat will be a lot closer to home. Charlotte instructs professional hitman Lex Harper to put a bullet in his brain in order to avert a major terrorist attack. But Charlotte also requires Lex’s help with a more personal problem. As ex-MI5, Charlotte knows too much about people who matter. And now someone has gone to extreme lengths to get to that information by breaking into her safe deposit box in a Hatton Garden-style armed robbery. Will both problems be solved by the end of this taut thriller? Degrade your mind by finding out, and enjoy that degradation. Revel in the sordid world of Leather.
Enquire at your local library or consult https://www.amazon.co.uk/Takedown-Stephen-Leather/dp/1473605520/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1481722881&sr=8-1&keywords=takedown+leather for further bibliographic detail
384 pages in Hodder & Stoughton
First published 2017
ISBN 978-1473605527
Stephen Leather