THE PROTECTOR

David Morrell

Headline hb, £18.99

Reviewed by Russell James

Global Protection Services is an exclusive, non-governmental agency which not only protects its high-status clients but can, if necessary, give them a new identity and help them to disappear. Latest client Prescott is holed up in a near impregnable abandoned warehouse with the enemy at the gates. Enter special agent Cavenaugh to get him out. The escape alone is a 40-page fantasmagoria of non-stop bullet-ridden action and twists. When Prescott is finally brought to the agency's gizmo-packed hideout in the wilderness you'd expect the frenetic pace to slow - but no: "Three helicopters are coming". So are more twists. There isn't a chapter in this book without a twist or a thrill. At times it reads like a Saturday morning cinema serial on speed, but the book is littered with security trade craft, is compulsively written, and is, in all seriousness, as exciting a thriller as it is possible to write. Morrell is a world leader in the thrill-a-minute business, and The Protector shows you why. How does he stand the pace?