Hot Blood

Unfortunately I haven't had the enjoyment of reading the Dan Shepherd series in order but am currently on my third book. The main character is ex SAS and now working as a policeman for a specialist undercover police division that investigates terrorist activity and the like. In this book, Dan is pulled away from his day job, working with other ex SAS to free Geordie Mitchell, another former SAS guy who had saved Shepherd's life. Geordie, like many ex soldiers, was working in private security in Iraq and has become the latest kidnap victim. His fate, unless saved, is set; he will be beheaded by his captors unless he can be freed before the deadline arrives. In attempting to find the fundamentalists holding Geordie, Shepherd is forced to consider how far he is willing to go in order to help his friend. Is it right to adopt the "ends justify the means" approach or should he be led by his conscience? The book is, at times, brutal in its description of events and thoroughly riveting. The reader is definitely provoked into thinking, "Do I agree with this or do I think we are as bad as the enemy we loathe?" I am thoroughly enjoying the Dan Shepherd books and recommend them for anyone who likes this genre and wants a good escapist read.

Hot Blood Hot Blood (ISBN 978-0-340-92169-2 Hodder and Stoughton 2007) is a new release from the prolific writer Stephen Leather and the fourth in his Dan (Spider) Shepherd series. Leather also spends much time in Thailand, and has been seen writing chapters of his books while sitting quietly in the corner of Jameson's Irish Pub. Perhaps this is the reason that Dan Shepherd's favorite drink is Jameson's and soda. Shepherd is an undercover British policeman who works for a shady section of the constabulary known as SOCA, the Serious Organized Crime Agency, and this book revolves around his attempt to release a hostage taken in Iraq. A hostage who had previously saved Shepherd's life. This particular captive was being held by a totally bloodthirsty group of Islamic extremists, who had killed their previous captive, graphically described by page 12. By then, you know you are in for a no holds barred and hard hitting thriller. There are three intermingled plots as Dan Shepherd traces local British terrorists, and at the same time is attempting to rescue his friend who is the hostage in Iraq, while an Iraqi sniper is very systematically killing any white face that he can. The detail in the book is meticulous, and brought me up to date with various weapons and such terrorist offensives as IEDs (Improvised Explosive Devices). The hero, Dan Shepherd, is portrayed as a very human character and the book delves into the principle of `do the ends justify the means?' This is a concept that Dan Shepherd struggles with throughout the entire book. After physically interrogating a suspect, Shepherd "wasn't proud of what he'd done, but he wasn't ashamed either. The man he'd assaulted was a terrorist." But this then led to questioning the morality of what the undercover operatives really do. It is an intellectual expose, not cops and robbers - it is a psychological thriller. Shepherd saying, "There's no honor in what we're doing, and I think it's time to stop." Being set in Iraq for the bulk of the book, the war situation is examined, right from the pre-invasion: "What had happened in Iraq was everything to do with money and virtually nothing to do with religion." However, after occupation and the civilian unrest and carnage, author Leather through his characters opines "on the surface the issue in Iraq is religious, but at the end of the day it's about power." This discussion of the political and moral debate over Iraq makes the book very current, and also makes the plot and characters even more believable. The pace of the book is kept up with the short chapters, but towards the end, as Shepherd gets close to his man, the pace is such that you truly cannot put this book down. An overly used phrase I know, but in this case totally justified. You will not be able to put it down either. At an RRP of B. 395 this is a veritable bargain thriller, and at 536 pages a damn long read. So much more than a detective yarn, Hot Blood is up to the minute entertainment and thoug

In HOT BLOOD, Stephen Leather's fourth book in the Dan "Spider" Shepherd series, Spider, an Ex-SAS trooper now a Detective Constable with a ultra hush-hush undercover unit within London's Metropolitan Police tasked with missions otherwise impossible,leaves the relative safety of the UK on an unauthorized leave of absence from his day job to take the point position on a mission into Baghdad's most anti-Western sector. Back in his Army days when Shepherd was chasing the Taliban in Afghanistan, Dan's life was saved by fellow trooper Geordie Mitchell. Now, while working for a private security company in the Iraqi capital, Mitchell is kidnapped by Islamic insurgents. In a video broadcast to the world, Mitchell's captors display their hostage and threaten his execution in two weeks if their demands aren't met. With virtually no leads as to Geordie's exact whereabouts or the identity of his abductors, Spider and three other former Sassmen, led by their old boss SAS Major Allan Gannon, must extricate Mitchell from his dodgy predicament before his throat is literally put to the knife. It's only been in the third and fourth installments of the series, i.e. this volume and Cold Kill (Dan Shepherd Mysteries), that the Spider character has matured in the sense that he's being pitted against the Islamic jihadists that are causing so much grief across international borders in the name of Allah rather than the self-serving criminals of his home country out for just money. With this wider world view, Shepherd is made more interesting and the plots as a whole more relevant to a wider readership. It also means that Spider might get out more in the wake of his wife's death three years previous and perhaps, as here, even get lucky. I hope the author maintains this direction in future books. For the reader, a consequence of the plot, likely intended by Leather, is a mental debate as to the methods by which the West should fight the jihadists that would see us destroyed. Does one "play by the rules" as Spider's conscience urges, or do whatever's necessary, no matter how cold blooded and brutal, as Yank CIA officer Yokely is more than happy to demonstrate during his "information retrieval" interrogations? Because, as Yokely explains the futility of American and British forces in Iraq: "Maximum terror, minimum risk. It's a hell of a lot easier to recruit a guy to plant IEDs than it is to recruit a suicide-bomber. I tell you, they can fight like this for ever. It doesn't matter how many troops we send, how much equipment we give them, we can't win. Because the enemy is untargetable. Overwhelming firepower is all well and good, but in Iraq we've got nothing to shoot at ... Imagine the havoc devices like that would wreak on our freeways. Or in New York City. Or London." My sentiments exactly. The only minor criticism I have with HOT BLOOD is the home-grown, British terrorist plot that Dan and his police unit are infiltrating when old SAS loyalties summon him away to r