Rat Run

In the military family there is no worse crime than cowardice. Malachy Kitchen, Intelligence officer, posted to Iraq, appears guilty of it while on patrol with an infantry platoon ambushed by insurgents. When word spreads that he was 'yellow' under hostile fire, his life starts to disintegrate. From Publishers Weekly Anglophiles with a taste for the dark side will enjoy the latest thriller from British author Seymour ( The Unknown Soldier ), despite an overly complicated plot involving drug trafficking and Mideast terrorism. Malachy Kitchen loses his job with British intelligence and is reduced to living on the street, abandoned by family and friends, after an apparent act of cowardice during the current Iraq war. Rescued by a stranger who judges him worthy of another chance, Kitchen moves to a drug-wrecked, gang-infested London housing project. After failing to prevent the mugging of an elderly neighbor, Kitchen employs his professional expertise against the local gangs. Meanwhile, a local drug lord is directed by his Hamburg supplier to do something that will carry him into far more shadowy realms than the drug trade. Unfortunately, since Kitchen comes across as such a pitiful figure for most of the book, readers will find it hard to like or identify with him until they gain a full understanding of his situation. (Mar.) Copyright � Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. From Booklist In Malachy Kitchen, a disgraced intelligence officer, veteran thriller writer Seymour has created one of his most interesting and memorable characters. An accusation of cowardice in the field has sent Malachy on a downward spiral; now he's destitute, living in a hovel side by side with drug dealers and other down-and-outers. When an elderly woman, his only friend, is mugged, Malachy must drag himself out of his hole, reconnect with his past, and track down the drug-network chieftain responsible. Seymour gives us two stories to follow: Malachy's pursuit of drug lord Ricky Capel and the saga of his gradual personal redemption. The pursuit story is intricate and suspenseful, as Seymour's many fans have come to expect; in the redemption story, he nimbly avoids most of the cliches associated with the type (it's probably not possible to avoid them all). A thriller with a human side. David Pitt Copyright � American Library Association. All rights reserved