The Judas Gate-Jack Higgins

The Judas Gate
Jack Higgins
Putnam, Jan 4 2011,
ISBN: 9780399156547

General Ferguson, Sean Dillon and company hear a tape Major Roper made. It takes place in Afghanistan in which a horde of terrorists led by Shamrock killed several Army Rangers and a British medical team. They hear the euphoric voice of Shamrock whose accent is English. There exists plausible evidence he has ties to Al Qaeda; although unknown to Dillon and company this killer answers to Osama’s main henchman in Britain the Preacher. After listening to the tape taken from the Afghan battlefields by Major Roper, General Ferguson thinks a Taliban attack was led by an educated upper-class Englishman. The General and Dillon want to track down the traitor and put him on trial for treason.

Daniel Holley, as lethal as Dillon is, joins the team but he makes the mistake of telling his business partner and close friend Hamid Malik what he is doing. Malik considers Hill a member of his family; he worries about him and confides his concerns bed friend of thirty years Ali Hakin; unaware that hat his pal is an Al-Qaeda agent. Hakim informs the Preacher that Dillon and company are searching for him. The Preacher welcomes the news by setting up a chain of events leading to a confrontation on is terms in a crowded sector of Algiers populated by the dregs of society.

Highly regarded for his Dillon suspense thrillers, Jack Higgins’ latest is the usual strong tale that feels plausible as the author extrapolates the story line from the headlines. The plot is filled with triple crosses accentuated by the addition of a new player to the team, who readers will wonder if Hill is to be trusted or a pure capitalist crossing back and forth between sides. Once started The Judas Gate is impossible to put down.

Harriet Klausner