The Negotiator

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

The kidnapping of a young man on a country road in Oxfordshire is but the first brutal step in a ruthless plan to force the President of the United States out of office. If it succeeds, he will be psychologically and emotionally destroyed. Only one man can stop it - Quinn, the world's foremost Negotiator, who must bargain for the life of an innocent man, unaware that ransom was never the kidnapper's real objective . . .

The Negotiator unfolds with the spellbinding excitement, unceasing surprise and riveting detail that are the hallmarks of Frederick Forsyth, the master storyteller.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Publishers Weekly Review

The reader almost despairs of a story getting under way in Forsyth's latest: the situation takes so long to set up, and is mired in such wearisome detail. Finally, after it has been made clear that both a renegade Soviet military group and a fanatical Texan oil baron plan to take over an oil-rich Middle Eastern state for their different twisted reasons, the action begins. The son of the American president (who is about to sign a major arms agreement with Gorbachev himself) is kidnapped, and, despite the best efforts of Quinn, the negotiator, is killed at the very moment of his ransoming. The president is stricken, a takeover of the U.S. government looms, and it looks as if the treaty is doomed. Now it is up to Quinn to find out who was behind the crime, and why. With a plucky and pretty female FBI agent, he scours obscure corners of northern Europe for the perpetrators--always to find them dead just as he arrives. In a cliffhanger of a conclusion, he brings the guilt home to Washington, the president perks up and the world is saved. As always, Forsyth is good at the details (you learn more about Dutch and Belgian road maps than you probably ever wanted to know), keeps a few surprises up his sleeve and writes action scenes more crisply, and with less gore, than Ludlum. But his characterization is flat, and much of The Negotiator is terribly familiar. By far the best parts are the negotiations for the ransoming of the president's son, which generate real tension. BOMC main selection. (May) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Kirkus Book Review

Forsyth's first novel in five years, and while it doesn't quite match the white-knuckle tensions of The Day of the Jackal or the baroque plottings of The Devil's Alternative, this big tale of global Realpolitik balancing on the kidnap of a US President's son is still a standout thriller--sophisticated, stingingly suspenseful, and grounded in the author's trademarked attention to authentic detail. As usual, Forsyth builds slowly, seeding multiple plot lines that will eventually detonate the main action. It's 1990, and, independently, right-wing cabals in both the US and Russia are running scared on two counts: with Soviet and US oil reserves near zero, the Arabs will soon own the world economy; and, with a giant arms-reduction treaty okayed by Gorbachev and American President John Cormack, each nation's defense industry is about to go belly-up. The solution? The two cabals conspire to destroy the treaty and then, acting alone, to go after oil by invading Iran (the Russians) and installing a puppet regime in Saudi Arabia (the Americans). How? By emotionally breaking Cormack--and American-Soviet ties--by kidnapping his young son, Simon, a student at Oxford, and then letting slip that the snatch was a Soviet job. Enter Forsyth's lone-wolf hero, veteran hostage negotiator Quinn, drawn out of retirement. Quinn's ballet of wits with the thuggish kidnappers forms the intricate puzzle/centerpiece of the novel's first half; when all of Quinn's efforts go terribly awry, however, Forsyth switches from intellectual to visceral satisfactions as the negotiator becomes the vengeful hunter (aided by a sexy FBI agent) to track down the kidnappers and their bosses across Europe and America--even as President Cormack crumbles and international chaos looms. No one does it better. A crackling good read that's sure to soar up the best-seller lists. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.