The Killing Ground-Jack Higgins

The Killing Ground
Jack Higgins
Putnam, Jan 2008, $25.95, 320 pp.
ISBN 9780399153808

Billy Salter is now part of Major Ferguson’s Secret Intelligence Service and like Sean Dillon, killing is just another tool in his arsenal. Sean and Billy are working passport patrol when they notice Mr. Casper Rashid and his wife Mollie entering the country after traveling to several known terrorist-sponsored countries. They are detained and brought in for interrogation. Rashid tells them that his thirteen year old daughter Sara has been kidnapped; taken to Baghdad by her paternal grandfather where she will marry the Hammer Of God, well known and respected by al Qaeda and Osama.

If the British agents will help him get back his daughter, he will give them all the considerable information he knows on the Army of God and other terrorist organizations. The deal is struck but Sara’s grandfather gets word that they are coming to rescue her. He hands his grandchild over to her betrothed who takes Sara to her uncle’s estate in Hazar. It takes a lot of work and subterfuge but the British agents rescue Sara. Their troubles are not over because Russian President Putin using an intermediary puts out a hit on Ferguson and his crew while the Islamic terrorists do the same. Much blood will be shed, including some on the right side before things are temporarily settled.

Jack Higgins is the master of the espionage and political thriller, changing enemies as the times change. Sean and Billy are cold blooded killers who know what they are as they fight against the enemies of England. Their efforts prove they are not thugs but very intelligent loyal men who do what they are told by their superiors with no questions asked. The author shows his skill as he makes the reader believe the terrorists and the Russians are in bed together although with the Chechnya revolt that seems unlikely.

Harriet Klausner