Without A Clue (Without Mercy - Jack Higgins)

Member Name: samueltyler

Product:	Without Mercy - Jack Higgins
Date:	16/09/08 (105 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Short

Disadvantages: Boring, lazy, poorly written

Everyone gets old at some point. The very strongest of men might find themselves with a bad back and the need of a cane. Beautiful women will find themselves no longer getting the admiring glances that they once took for granted. Depressing as this is not everything has to stop when they get older. The arts are full of people who have carried on to a ripe ages from artists to actor and authors. Jack Higgins is a man who has been writing for a long time and although he gets older his characters never seem to age. Or change their viewpoint. Is this a good thing? Long after his 60s/70s heyday Higgins is churning out at least one book a year mostly starring his favourite Irishman Sean Dillon. Is Higgins bowing out his career with some of his best work, or is he milking long term fans for as much as he can get?

This time Sean Dillon must go up against the IRA again and a group of irate Russians working under the rule of Putin. They are fed up that the British agency run by Brigadier Ferguson is always ruining their plans so they set out to wipe the group out and their allies. With Detective Superintendent Hannah Bernstein critically ill in hospital they have a readymade target. Can Dillon keep her safe and undo the Russians once more before starting a new Cold War? His adventures will span the globe from rainy London and Ireland to the island of Ibiza.

Many authors fall into the trap of producing the same type of book over and over again. This cookie cutter style of writing leads to books that differ only in setting or time, but fundamentally are exactly the same. This does not have to be a bad thing as authors such as Bernard Cornwell have shown that giving the people what they want can be successful and still readable. Unfortunately, Higgins has gone far beyond cookie cutter with his Dillon novels and seems have produced a manufacturing belt of dross that Ford would be proud of. 'Without Mercy' is almost identical to the last 5 or 6 Dillon novels to the point where I sometimes thought I had read it before (I had not, I checked). It is embarrassing that an author that produced great thrillers such as 'The Eagle Has Landed'. 'Luciano's Luck, and 'Solo' could sink to reproducing this.

However, as mentioned before repeating oneself may be an ok thing as the fans will get more of what they want. Higgins does take this to an extreme, but is that a bad thing in of itself? I personally think it is, but if this were not big enough an issue I must mention how awful the writing has become. Higgins' job for the boys attitude to the secret service feels extremely dated now. The men and women in the book read like they are from 1955 and not modern London. The men are chauvinistic and the women fluff.

Once again is this a really bad thing? (answer yes) What is even worse is some of the stereotypes on offer. The Irish love a drink. The Russians only sup vodka and champagne. Every spy is a gentleman who follows an unwritten code. Did these ideas not go out of the window during the more enlightened 90s? I imagine that Higgins sits in his loft trying to pretend that the Cold War never ended. A last point on the writing is that the structure of chapters and sentences is of the standard you expect from an early teen novel e.g. the Young Bond books. Seeing Higgins fall so low makes you wish that someone would ask his to retire. I am sure that the publishers have absolutely no plans to do this as they are flogging him all the way. I can already picture numerous post humorous books being released that the publishers are stockpiling for the inevitable.

For fans of Higgins brilliant peak avoid these later books as it is becoming a sad decline. I love his stuff from the 60s-70s, they are full of daft male characters getting into adventures. In my opinion they are of their time and unfortunately Higgins never left yesteryear. 'Without Mercy' is a lazily written book that rehashes the same ground that Higgins has mined dry about 10 years ago. With a poor structure, cliché characters, out dated ideals and misogynistic undertones this book has become a new low for the author. I am hoping that Higgins is able to produce one or two more great books before he retires, but I doubt this will ever happen if he continues to write about the bland adventures of the Irishman called Dillon.

Author: Jack Higgins
Year: 2006
Price: amazon uk - £4.07
play.com - £5.49

Summary: I no longer know Jack