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It's hard to believe that it has been over 30 years since Frederick Forsyth wrote THE DAY OF THE JACKAL. It wasn't long after that book was published that the world learned there really was a Jackal and that, contrary to the ending of Forsyth's work of fiction, he was not killed moments after failing to assassinate Charles de Gaulle, but actually was still out running around. Forsyth's subsequent novels have accordingly been treated as if they are treatises concerning the hidden history of the world. AVENGER is no different, and while it may be a work of fiction, the foundation upon which it is written is chillingly real.
Forsyth spends a good deal of time --- almost the first third of the book --- setting his characters in space and time. As a result there is initially a great amount of jumping around. A lesser writer would have lost the thread of the narrative, and indeed Forsyth is almost a victim of his own cleverness.
Part of the gambit involves an idealistic American youth, fresh out of college, who joins a non-government humanitarian relief effort in war-torn Serbia and is casually tortured and murdered by a band of anonymous marauding outlaws led by a violent and dangerous psychopath who seems to have vanished after the deed was done.
The victim's grandfather, a self-made millionaire, seeks that which is almost impossible to obtain: justice. He wants his beloved grandson's killer brought to the United States and tried for murder before a court of law. For this, he is placed in contact with a man known only as Avenger.
Avenger is Pete Dexter, a former "tunnel rat," the name given to an elite team of American soldiers who conducted seek-and-destroy missions in the network of enemy tunnels utilized during the Vietnam War. Forsyth takes his time explaining what Dexter did, and who he was, just so that we can get an idea of what sort of skills he brings to the table as Avenger.
Dexter now lives quietly, practicing law in a small town in Pennsylvania and giving no clue to his past nor to his occasional work as a highly skilled, highly paid mercenary. There is no smooth way to set all of this up, and at times the narrative almost becomes awkward as it jumps back and forth. Every word of this tale, however, is so interesting that reading it is like being swept down rapids --- you're moving so fast and the trip is so thrilling that the occasional bump becomes an expected part of the ride.
Nothing though prepares the reader for what the beginning of AVENGER portends. Forsyth is a master gamesman and he sets up a situation whereby it becomes vitally important to the safety and security of the United States that Avenger does not complete his mission. The reader is accordingly on tenterhooks, hoping by turns that Avenger does the job he has been retained to do in order to redress a horrible wrong, yet wishing that those aligned against Avenger will prevent him from doing so.
What makes this all the more interesting is that the reader will already know, long before the last page, that Avenger is successful. Forsyth has utilized this technique before. In THE DAY OF THE JACKAL, for instance, everyone knew that the Jackal would fail in his attempt to assassinate Charles de Gaulle. The intriguing aspect of the book was in discovering how he would fail.
The mirror element in AVENGER concerns how Avenger will succeed in his own mission, not only with respect to locating his target, but also with respect to abducting him from a seemingly impenetrable fortress and bringing him back to the United States. The answer will keep you reading --- and thinking --- long into the night. But there is more to AVENGER than this intriguing, suspenseful plot. Forsyth sets up a backstory that has so much relevance to today's headlines that after reading AVENGER you'll be unable to watch or read the news without thinking of this novel.
AVENGER will not only introduce Forsyth to a new generation of readers but will also have his audience, both old and new, repeatedly revisiting his already extensive bibliography. This is a title to read, discuss and analyze.
--- Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub
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