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nithin_shankar's review against another edition
adventurous
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.0
This the first book i read of the author and it was well written. And looking forward to read more.
marco5599's review against another edition
dark
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.5
kvothesduet's review against another edition
5.0
Avenger boasts everything that makes Forsyth's work thrilling: a compelling story, diverse characters with fully fleshed-out life histories, obsessively-researched settings, and a high-octane climax that ties everything together. The twist (more accurately, twists) at the end make the investment in the rest of the book all the more rewarding.
wormys_queue's review against another edition
3.0
I have a love-hate relationship with Frederick Forsyth's books. I hate most of his political views and I don't think that he's a particularly well-versed writer. Still, he succeeds every time in me wanting to know how the story ends, so he must do something right even if I cannot spell exactly what this is.
This time it's about a Vietnam vet who uses his special skill-set to go after a yugoslavian war criminal who murdered a young idealistic american during the Balcan war. Unluckily this war criminal has been recruited by CIA for their war against terrorism, so he has a lot more enemies than he is initially aware of.
The book poses some interesting questions about responsibility, loyalty and guilt (with regard to international politics). As said before, I don't agree with a lot of Forsysth's comments, so it's quite interesting to see how the events go during the course of the book. So what it comes down to is an entertaining lecture within an historical context which touches on some questions on topics we're still looking for the answers to.
This time it's about a Vietnam vet who uses his special skill-set to go after a yugoslavian war criminal who murdered a young idealistic american during the Balcan war. Unluckily this war criminal has been recruited by CIA for their war against terrorism, so he has a lot more enemies than he is initially aware of.
The book poses some interesting questions about responsibility, loyalty and guilt (with regard to international politics). As said before, I don't agree with a lot of Forsysth's comments, so it's quite interesting to see how the events go during the course of the book. So what it comes down to is an entertaining lecture within an historical context which touches on some questions on topics we're still looking for the answers to.
weaselweader's review against another edition
4.0
Don’t get mad, get even! On second thought, do both!
Who remembers THE EQUALIZER from 1980s television starring starring Edward Woodward as a retired intelligence agent with a murky, mysterious past? He used the skills garnered from his past career to exact justice for innocent people trapped by circumstances in dangerous situations – a soupçon of spy, a dash of military thriller, a pinch of private detective, with a heaping helping of vigilante sauce added on top of the other ingredients. With AVENGER, one need only add counter-terrorist and trained black ops commando to the mix! If all of that sounds very over the top and pushing the limits of credibility, be assured that it is but AVENGER is still one of the most compelling action thrillers that you’ll ever read.
On top of that, AVENGER might be characterized as a fascinating and wonderfully informative brief history of the dark world of modern war and terrorism – from Vietnam’s tunnel rats and Pol Pot’s reign of terror in Cambodia, through the Serbian genocide of warlords directed by Slobodan Milošević, up to Osama bin Laden’s plans for his ultimate act of terror in 2001. Forsythe brilliantly intertwines a series of vignettes in each of these settings to craft the back story of the AVENGER and the supporting cast who will wage an undeclared war to revenge the death of a young man murdered as he sought only to do charitable work for an NGO in a setting troubled by war and revolution.
Definitely recommended. Oh my word, yes!
Paul Weiss
Who remembers THE EQUALIZER from 1980s television starring starring Edward Woodward as a retired intelligence agent with a murky, mysterious past? He used the skills garnered from his past career to exact justice for innocent people trapped by circumstances in dangerous situations – a soupçon of spy, a dash of military thriller, a pinch of private detective, with a heaping helping of vigilante sauce added on top of the other ingredients. With AVENGER, one need only add counter-terrorist and trained black ops commando to the mix! If all of that sounds very over the top and pushing the limits of credibility, be assured that it is but AVENGER is still one of the most compelling action thrillers that you’ll ever read.
On top of that, AVENGER might be characterized as a fascinating and wonderfully informative brief history of the dark world of modern war and terrorism – from Vietnam’s tunnel rats and Pol Pot’s reign of terror in Cambodia, through the Serbian genocide of warlords directed by Slobodan Milošević, up to Osama bin Laden’s plans for his ultimate act of terror in 2001. Forsythe brilliantly intertwines a series of vignettes in each of these settings to craft the back story of the AVENGER and the supporting cast who will wage an undeclared war to revenge the death of a young man murdered as he sought only to do charitable work for an NGO in a setting troubled by war and revolution.
Definitely recommended. Oh my word, yes!
Paul Weiss
simonmee's review against another edition
1.0
Avenger, the darling of the bulk buy bins, seemed like a bit of dumb ol' fun. But it wanders into some preachy territory.
Just a bit of Dumb ol’ Fun?
No.
There’s a story in there, if you strip it right down to its dumbest and its funnest parts. Serbian gangsters/nationalists murder an American in Bosnia. Years later that American’s wealthy grandfather hires an “Avenger” to track down the head Serb. The CIA has its own interests and intervenes to protect the Serb. If you distilled this book to 100 pages, you’d have an efficient novella. If you slapped James Bond’s name on the lead, it’d be one of his better ones.
But getting there is Such. Incredibly. Heavy. Going. The book suffers from excessive characterisation. Significant sections of the book are set aside to go through tangential histories of the leads. Sure, those passages/pages/chapters/30% of the book are narrowly defensible as relevant to the story, but they keep derailing the narrative rather than being interesting interludes.
The structure also creates an uneveness. The final third is "too easy" as Forsyth rushes through the denouement and fails to take the time to build up tension in each scene.
There’s also a couple of things below that suggest Forsyth isn’t exactly a people person.
No time to chat
Forsyth avoids dialogue where he can and, when he can’t, the conversations are brutally efficient:
Person 1: Give me information
Person 2: [Conveys information]/[Refuses to convey information]
...even between characters that are apparently decades long bosom buddies.
Hot Daughter Blues
”By the summer of 1991 Amanda Jane Dexter was sixteen and knockout attractive. The Naples-descended Marozzi genes had given her a figure to cause a bishop to kick a hole in a stained-glass window. The blond Anglo-Saxon lineage of Dexter endowed her with a face like the young Bardot”
You know how I complained about excessive characterisation? Well... sometimes Forsyth forgets about any at all, particularly women. The Avenger is motivated in part by the death of his daughter. That really hot one. That we know nothing else about. Instead, we get a lengthy discourse about bamboo-snake ridden Vietnamese tunnels.
The Avenger’s wife also dies. It is the Avenger’s fault. Forsyth, who is writing the story, is unaware of this.
The deep end [of the paddling pool]
Forsyth is fiction for the non-fiction reader. He loves to delve into weapons, legislative history and biting political commentary, like the European intervention in the break up of Yugoslavia and that “The Russians are nothing if not the most racist people on earth."
I think the intent is that by reading his stories, you are initiated into the inner sanctum of geopolitical knowledge, and can expect invitations to those clubs where future Prime Ministers stick appendages into pigs.
...but anyway... ...Forsyth has an opinion on 9/11:
"He recalled Father Dominic Xavier who had taxed him with a moral problem. ‘A man is coming at you, with intent to kill you. He has a knife. His total reach is four feet. You have the right of self-defence. You have no shield, but you have a spear. Its reach is nine feet. Do you lunge, or wait?’ He would put pupil against pupil, each tasked to argue the opposite viewpoint. Devereaux never hesitated. The greater good against the lesser evil."
Now Avenger is fiction. But it’s clear to me that Forsyth wants to recreate that moral problem for the reader:
"Yes, the disgusting Serb had killed one American. Somewhere out there was a man who had killed fifty, and more to come."
This disgusting Serb is part of a plan to stop Osama Bin Laden pre 9/11. Ignore the gaping plot hole that a Serbian genocidal maniac might actually prefer 9/11 happened. Here's a hint to my main criticism: Forsyth is writing about 9/11.
Any number of events of varying ruthlessness could have stopped 9/11. Just because Forsyth created a scenario with a bad guy in it doesn't make him a moral philosopher. Read the book's moral problem again:
"With intent to kill you." and "He has a knife."
It's a tough choice that's not really a tough choice. Both answers are "right" in that you could feel comfortable either way. Wait for the bad guy's action, or strike first because everyone knows he's the bad guy. And sure, Osama was bad guy and maybe another bad guy might have stopped him. But, with respect to the problem he's irrelevant. He killed before 9/11 and we know he did 9/11.
So, asking the question another way, would you really trust a shadowy government organisation that deals with mass murderers when it tells you each time that "He meant to kill you" and "He had a knife"? Because it won't stop with Osama.
In case you're wondering whether I'm asking a hypothetical, I note that "knife" and "intent" really did start becoming "yellowcake uranium from Niger", "military aged males" and "American citizens Anwar al-Awlaki, 16 year old Abdulrahman al-Awlaki, and 8 year old Nawar al-Awlaki" (all killed in separate attacks without the slimmest of considerations to due process). And those are just the things they tell us.
What I'm saying is that when it comes to the knife and intent to kill,
- I don't know;
- You don't know; and
- Forsyth doesn't know.
Using 9/11 is a tawdry trick. If you don't have rules about how you establish knives and intent before you act, then you are the one with the knife and the intent.
I may not know much about philosophy, but I can smell bullshit, and this book is shovelling a whole lot of it.
Put it in the recycling bin.
Just a bit of Dumb ol’ Fun?
No.
There’s a story in there, if you strip it right down to its dumbest and its funnest parts. Serbian gangsters/nationalists murder an American in Bosnia. Years later that American’s wealthy grandfather hires an “Avenger” to track down the head Serb. The CIA has its own interests and intervenes to protect the Serb. If you distilled this book to 100 pages, you’d have an efficient novella. If you slapped James Bond’s name on the lead, it’d be one of his better ones.
But getting there is Such. Incredibly. Heavy. Going. The book suffers from excessive characterisation. Significant sections of the book are set aside to go through tangential histories of the leads. Sure, those passages/pages/chapters/30% of the book are narrowly defensible as relevant to the story, but they keep derailing the narrative rather than being interesting interludes.
The structure also creates an uneveness. The final third is "too easy" as Forsyth rushes through the denouement and fails to take the time to build up tension in each scene.
There’s also a couple of things below that suggest Forsyth isn’t exactly a people person.
No time to chat
Forsyth avoids dialogue where he can and, when he can’t, the conversations are brutally efficient:
Person 1: Give me information
Person 2: [Conveys information]/[Refuses to convey information]
...even between characters that are apparently decades long bosom buddies.
Hot Daughter Blues
”By the summer of 1991 Amanda Jane Dexter was sixteen and knockout attractive. The Naples-descended Marozzi genes had given her a figure to cause a bishop to kick a hole in a stained-glass window. The blond Anglo-Saxon lineage of Dexter endowed her with a face like the young Bardot”
You know how I complained about excessive characterisation? Well... sometimes Forsyth forgets about any at all, particularly women. The Avenger is motivated in part by the death of his daughter. That really hot one. That we know nothing else about. Instead, we get a lengthy discourse about bamboo-snake ridden Vietnamese tunnels.
The Avenger’s wife also dies. It is the Avenger’s fault. Forsyth, who is writing the story, is unaware of this.
The deep end [of the paddling pool]
Forsyth is fiction for the non-fiction reader. He loves to delve into weapons, legislative history and biting political commentary, like the European intervention in the break up of Yugoslavia and that “The Russians are nothing if not the most racist people on earth."
I think the intent is that by reading his stories, you are initiated into the inner sanctum of geopolitical knowledge, and can expect invitations to those clubs where future Prime Ministers stick appendages into pigs.
...but anyway... ...Forsyth has an opinion on 9/11:
"He recalled Father Dominic Xavier who had taxed him with a moral problem. ‘A man is coming at you, with intent to kill you. He has a knife. His total reach is four feet. You have the right of self-defence. You have no shield, but you have a spear. Its reach is nine feet. Do you lunge, or wait?’ He would put pupil against pupil, each tasked to argue the opposite viewpoint. Devereaux never hesitated. The greater good against the lesser evil."
Now Avenger is fiction. But it’s clear to me that Forsyth wants to recreate that moral problem for the reader:
"Yes, the disgusting Serb had killed one American. Somewhere out there was a man who had killed fifty, and more to come."
This disgusting Serb is part of a plan to stop Osama Bin Laden pre 9/11. Ignore the gaping plot hole that a Serbian genocidal maniac might actually prefer 9/11 happened. Here's a hint to my main criticism: Forsyth is writing about 9/11.
Any number of events of varying ruthlessness could have stopped 9/11. Just because Forsyth created a scenario with a bad guy in it doesn't make him a moral philosopher. Read the book's moral problem again:
"With intent to kill you." and "He has a knife."
It's a tough choice that's not really a tough choice. Both answers are "right" in that you could feel comfortable either way. Wait for the bad guy's action, or strike first because everyone knows he's the bad guy. And sure, Osama was bad guy and maybe another bad guy might have stopped him. But, with respect to the problem he's irrelevant. He killed before 9/11 and we know he did 9/11.
So, asking the question another way, would you really trust a shadowy government organisation that deals with mass murderers when it tells you each time that "He meant to kill you" and "He had a knife"? Because it won't stop with Osama.
In case you're wondering whether I'm asking a hypothetical, I note that "knife" and "intent" really did start becoming "yellowcake uranium from Niger", "military aged males" and "American citizens Anwar al-Awlaki, 16 year old Abdulrahman al-Awlaki, and 8 year old Nawar al-Awlaki" (all killed in separate attacks without the slimmest of considerations to due process). And those are just the things they tell us.
What I'm saying is that when it comes to the knife and intent to kill,
- I don't know;
- You don't know; and
- Forsyth doesn't know.
Using 9/11 is a tawdry trick. If you don't have rules about how you establish knives and intent before you act, then you are the one with the knife and the intent.
I may not know much about philosophy, but I can smell bullshit, and this book is shovelling a whole lot of it.
Put it in the recycling bin.
brvmama's review against another edition
4.0
I like the way Forsyth mixes real character with fiction and places action in the real time. It is like augmented reality. You almost believe it is a true story. The action is edge of the seat and every thing seems plausible.
nefellyk's review against another edition
4.0
Avenger is definitely a page turner. Unique storyline and amazing character development.