The Afghan

 

By Frederick Forsyth

4 Stars

Thriller/Suspense

Adult

To this point, I have loved every book I've read from this author. This one disappointed me a little, even though I still think it's a great read.

Mike Martin is the protagonist of this novel. I remember him from "The Fist of God". In this book, he is older; in fact, he seems to be riding off into the sunset. He's renovating a building to retire in, doing most of the work himself. When he gets the call to go back into action, no real motivation is provided for him to do so. Any motivation is implied. If you've read the preceding books, it makes sense. I'm struggling with it, though, as I approach my own retirement. Risk my life for an unknown threat? It's hard for this reader to fully buy into that without some kind of explained incentive.

Terry Martin is the protagonist's brother. In "The Fist of God," he felt like an important character. This time, not so much. He's a professor and works for the government as an Arabic linguistic expert on an on-call basis, along with several other experts. They just agree with what is feared. He's really not needed. Then he boasts about his brother's abilities, which gets the attention of the counter-terrorism people. After his brother's previous exploits, that prodding is entirely unnecessary. A lot of time is spent on his backstory and his character development; once he's made this less-than-spectacular contribution, he disappears from the story. I feel like he's a token character who needed either a bigger role or no real role at all. 

Those two things bothered me and are the reason for the one-star deduction. Outside of that, the story was terrific. It was a page-turner, and I have no problem keeping it as part of my personal library. I do recommend this book, but I think that the other books he's written that I've read are all a bit better.