Shaun Hutson - Testament

[ripper]

Shaun Hutson--Testament (Caffeine Nights, 2019)


Blurb:
TESTAMENT - For some...death is just the beginning...
You have a chance to save the world or the only person you ever loved...What would you do...?
Sean Doyle faced danger, death and other things he'd rather forget during his time in the Counter Terrorist Unit. But times change, even if Doyle doesn't. He's older but no wiser and the world he knew has changed.
Now he finds himself working as a Private Security Consultant in Baghdad, still a city in turmoil. His job is to protect the men working on a new rail line from terrorist attacks. For Doyle, it seems like old times but this time it's a different kind of enemy. However, someone from his past arrives to offer him the kind of work he was made for. Doyle is given the chance to re-join the Counter Terrorist Unit.
The reason is that a case he worked on thirty years earlier has been re-opened. A man he thought was dead has been spotted in the company of the Russian Mafia. But how can this be? Doyle knows that he himself killed this man one fateful night in Ireland back in the eighties. The lure of his old life is too much but when he returns he discovers there are some catches.
After physical and psychological tests, he will have to work with a partner. A man half his age who seems to embody everything Doyle despises.
Between them, these two will have to hunt down the man who Doyle thought was dead. A man with limitless wealth, twisted desires and the mind of a monster. The man responsible for the death of the only woman Doyle ever loved. It's meant to be a mission but, for Doyle, it's what he does best. It's revenge.
However, when the time comes, he will find answers that threaten not only his life but his sanity. His old, blood spattered world will come hurtling back to engulf him and a decision must be made that defies reason.
Sean Doyle is back but might wish he wasn't....

This is a sequel to Hutson's first Sean Doyle novel, Renegades. While other Doyle novels have been straightforward thrillers, Testament follows Renegades in that it blends the supernatural into the mix.

The story begins in Iraq, with Doyle providing security for a railway project. It isn't too long until Doyle's former CTU boss asks him to come back to London and track down David Callahan, whom Doyle killed three decades earlier, yet has been seen and identified in the company of Ukrainian gangsters. Doyle finds that the methods of the CTU have changed and he is looked upon as a dinosaur. Added to Doyle's problems is that he is made to work with a partner, one of the CTU's modern agents.

As Doyle and his partner track down Callahan, a series of robberies occur which suggest that Doyle's quarray is collecting some very strange items.

I'm about 80% through the novel. I was expecting more action in Iraq, but there isn't that much. There are also several characters introduced that I expected would feature prominently, yet just disappear. It's clear that Doyle has mellowed somewhat, yet retains his inherent toughness. Having said that, he is having dreams about being visited by Georgie, his former CTU partner and only love, who was killed in Doyle's first brush with Callahan, but little does he know that those visitations are going to take a more substantial twist.

There are several unpleasant scenes of women being abused by Callahan, and the murder of a child, so be warned. Up to now, the action has not been as frequent nor as bloody as earlier Doyle adventures, but that may change as the climax approaches. Hopefully, I will finish this one in the next day or two and shall post my final thoughts.

[andydecker]

Cover of hardback and Ebook.

[ripper]

Apr 24, 2024 15:20:31 GMT andydecker said:

Cover of hardback and Ebook.

Thanks for the scans, Andy.

Well, I finished Testament last night. It picked up pace towards the end with some of Hutson's usual descriptions of bullet damage to bodies, plus a Night of the Living Dead style siege of a church. Overall, it was okay, I thought. It lacked the rawness of his early work, as though he had taken sandpaper and rounded off the sharpness that used to be there. A number of characters I thought would play major parts were just dropped with no further mention of them, and a betrayal was telegraphed way before Doyle and his partner became aware of it. In Renegades there were two story threads running in parallel: Doyle and Georgie hunting down the rogue IRA cell, and the Callahans acquisition of the stained glass window, and the two only really interacted at the finale. Testament is far more mixed, indeed, it is much more akin to Heathen than Renegades. To be honest, I prefer Doyle in straightforward thrillers than mixing the supernatural into the action. In Renegades the two threads were so well separated it was possible to ignore the supernatural elements for most of the book, and last time I read it I did just that, skipping those chapters where the stained glass window is mentioned. If you are a Doyle fan like me then Testament is worth a read. I hope Hutson brings him back, though he is getting on in years now, but I would prefer a straight thriller.