The Veteran - Frederick Forsyth

At the outset, Id first like to say, I love Frederick Foresyth, though The Veteran was probably only the third book that I have read of his, but the way in which he weaves a story, the suspense and of course his incredible style of writing. Having said that, I now say I love him even more after this book and watch out my collection of books is going to get fatter.

The Veteran is actually a collection of 5 novellas the first of which is of the same name. Considering I love writing short stories as much as reading them, I wanted to move on to the genre of novellas, and this couldn’t have been a more perfect choice.

After each of the first 3 stories, I went WOW! THAT WAS UNBELIEVABLE; the climax of each of those 3 stories was a sucker punch that blew the wind out of me. They were brilliant in its novelty, yet simplicity and of course the dexterity. The first one, ‘The Veteran’, about crime and a skewed sense of justice, the second, ‘The Art of the Matter’, about fraud in the art world and brilliant sense of revenge, and a third, ‘A Miracle’, of which I will not reveal the spoiler, but let me say it’s about history and war and a miracle in turbulent times that WILL give you goose-bumps!

The 4^th story, ‘The Citizen’ was brilliant in its story and of course the flow in narration, but did not impress me all too much, it is a winner in the author’s dexterity, which I will not deny.

And finally the 5^th and the largest one, “Whispering Wind”, is a wonderfully written story, I love the romanticism about the rustic man Ben Craig, the story itself is fine, not my best of the book, but exceptionally fine.

What is common among the stories is a crime, a crime of different kinds is perpetrated, but what it is guaranteed is justice, every story talks about karma, which tells us that in life you will not get away with crime and bad deeds, and if you think injustice is meted out to you, you will have your revenge, of that you can be sure.

I realized the brilliance of Frederick Forsyth’s writing when I tried NARRATING “The Miracle”, ON THE TELEPHONE to my husband in the DEAD of the night, who obviously had no choice but to listen; he said “ o yes that did give me goose-bumps! “ I knew then, this is the artwork of a Veteran – Mr. Frederick Forsyth.

Not a must read I would say, but definitely give it a go if you like action and thriller stories.

My rating – 8/10 .