Betrayal

Tim Tigner

Average Rating 8/10 (1 Review)

Presumed dead after an attack blamed on al-Qaeda, FBI agent Odysseus Carr is running for his life with the missionary doctor who rescued him in Iran. Meanwhile the same power players who sent Odi to his death are now manipulating his sister, FBI profiler Cassandra Carr, into blindly tracking him down. As Odi unravels a devious plot of profound political manipulation and global consequence, the hunted becomes the hunter, and then the real terror begins...

Written by a former Green Beret and Military Intelligence Specialist, Betrayal combines Vince Flynn’s hard-core covert action with Nelson DeMille’s gripping drama in a thought provoking and suspenseful thriller.

'The prose snaps and pops with a fresh, nearly breathless energy reminiscent of Ludlum, Le Carre, Clancy et al.'

Review by Chrissi (280215) Rating (8/10)

Review by Chrissi
Rating 8/10
When a person with political ambitions agrees ‘whatever it takes’ to achieve a goal, then you know that some skulduggery is going to be necessary, and also, you know that someone is going to be on the receiving end of said skulduggery and they will be pretty peeved about it. This is pretty much the situation in Betrayal, and the title pretty much lives up to its name; on so many levels, of individuals and the society in whose political arena their ambitions lie.

The roots of the story lie in the role of the massive open chequebook for those companies who provide goods and services to the governments who wage war on each other and those whom they deem terrorists. When a covert team are given a target to destroy, they observe it to be a working hospital, but they are still ordered to proceed with the destruction of the building. Having been relieved of command for asking to reconnoitre the building to confirm or deny its purpose, Odysseus Carr awakes to find himself wounded, the only survivor of his team in a bomb blast that has destroyed the hospital whilst there were visiting dignitaries on site. He is saved by a doctor and sets out to find why this has happened and why he was identified as responsible.

On the other side of the world, his twin sister is in a relationship with a nice man but his political ambitions will lead to his abandonment of her for a cardinal sin – her being too tall to stand by his side in pictures, which would cause a very shallow American voting public to not take him seriously for his lack of stature. So says the person who is to be his chief of staff, who sets out to destroy her professional credibility to force the end of the relationship.

Odysseus and Cassandra Carr are twins. They are clever and competent and they are unknowingly pitched against each other when she is asked to protect the men who are responsible for his betrayal and supposed death.

Setting the two of them at odds seems a cruel jest, but works really well, and allows us to view the situation from both sides, a person designated a terrorist for his actions against a person whose political ambitions has caused them to betray the society that he says that he wishes to serve.

The pace of the story is fast and stands well as a techno-thriller, with some very interesting gizmos and some pretty well-imagined graphic violence. I had more empathy with Cassandra than Odysseus, but then it is understandable as we are both tall people and there are only so many tall lady comments that people feel the need to make. Frequently.

The bad guys are clearly bad, and Stuart is a really snakelike bad guy. You cannot help but be pleased when he gets his comeuppance at the hands of the person whose life he has been trying to destroy.

I have read three novels now and they each have a different premise, no device is reused and the technology is clever and well-imagined. I enjoy the writing of this author and await his breakthrough into the big leagues; he is a strong talent and deserves his writing to be available to a wider audience. As we readers deserve to have more from him.
Chrissi (28th February 2015)