Sean Dillon, master of disguise and steady Higgins hero (Angel of Death, etc.), returns for another go against political mayhem in the author's latest action-fest. A 1985 hijacking of gold bullion, masterminded by Irish Protestant terrorist Michael Ryan, ends with the ship that's carrying the booty sinking off Ireland. Ryan and his niece Kathleen flee to America while their presumed henchman, seemingly a sailor but actually a disguised Dillon, then an IRA enforcer, ostensibly returns to sea. Ten years later, Ryan is sprung from an American medical prison by a Mafia lawyer intent on retrieving the bullion. Soon the gold is the object of desire of the mob, a retired IRA chief of staff and British Intelligence, for whom Dillon now works. The cheeky, pint-sized Dillon tends toward occasional stage Irishness, and the other characterizations aren't much deeper, but readers riveted by Higgins's mastery of plot and pace won't mind at all. Winding up with a jaunty noir bounce, this is splendid high pulp-in other words, vintage Higgins. BOMC main selection. (June) ~ FYI: Two Sean Dillon novels, On Dangerous Ground and Eye of the Storm, will air later this year on Showtime as TV movies, starring Rob Lowe as Dillon.\
Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly
The fifth Sean Dillon adventure (the last was Angel of Death, LJ 3/1/95) finds the former terrorist involved with a group of Irish Protestant paramilitaries in 1985 as they hijack a truck carrying 100 million in gold bullion. Ten years later, Sean is working for British Intelligence when he is ordered to go after the gold again. Now he is to prevent the bullion from disrupting the peace between the Catholics and Protestants. Dillon, boss Brigadier Ferguson, and partner Hannah Bernstein must also deal with the Mafia. They ask 85-year-old Liam Devlin for help, and the IRA legend of past Higgins books is only too pleased to participate. The excitement never lags as each side double-crosses the others. Sean is too perfect, however, and the surprise ending is not a surprise. Even so, it is fun getting there. Recommended for popular collections.-Andrea Lee Shuey, Dallas P.L.\
In this sequel to the Sean Dillon saga (see "Angel of Death" ), the secret agent saves the peace in Northern Ireland through an ingenious masquerade that exploits his past as a dependable IRA man. Flash back to 1985 when Dillon, alias Michael Keogh, is sent by the Provos to infiltrate their archenemy, the Unionists. After ingratiating himself by knee-capping some Catholics, "Keogh" discovers an interesting plot afoot: his "comrade" Ryan plans to heist gold bullion in England, ship it back to Ulster, and finance his group's war against the IRA. Unfortunately, the plan founders along with the ship during a shoot-out; Keogh and Ryan trudge ashore to continue the story. Ten years pass, finding Ryan, the only one who knows the location of the shipwreck, doing time for killing an American police officer, while Keogh/Dillon has turned coats, working now, for no apparent motivation, for England's prime minister. The author is betting that his readers want action rather than explanation, which they get, courtesy of an unlikely plot accelerator: Ryan's trade of his knowledge for the Mafia's help in a jailbreak. Soon all parties converge over the old bones of the ship, but the gold is gone! You can bet it turns up somewhere else, but not until Dillon demonstrates his skill with a gun and in undercover work, the basis of his continuing appeal to Higgins' readers.
Onetime terrorist Sean Dillon goes for the gold once more, in a tired, overgalvanized treasure hunt aimed at die-hard Higgins regulars.
Before he beat his IRA sword into the plowshare of Her Majesty's Secret Service, Dillon (Angel of Death, 1995, etc.) managed to infiltrate loose-cannon Irish Protestant Michael Ryan's plot to steal £50 million in gold bullion to purchase weapons for the Loyalist cause. Ryan and his teenaged niece Kathleen, not realizing their strong right arm "Martin Keogh" was actually IRA stalwart Dillon, planned to hijack a gold shipment and transport the booty by sea to the Emerald Isle. But a dispute with the Ryans' other hirelings, the mercenary captain and crew, left the Irish Rose sunk in 90 feet of water. Now, ten years later, a lot of people suddenly get interested in the sunken treasure all over again. Mafia Don Antonio Russo wants to break Ryan out of a New York prison, where he's serving 25 years for shooting a cop, in return for the coordinates of the Irish Rose. Jack Barry, Dillon's old boss before he retired as IRA Chief of Staff, thinks the gold (now worth £100 million) would come in handy in arming the Provos. The Ryans, forced into partnership with the hated Barry and the Mafia godfather, are just waiting for the moment when they can grab the loot that should have been theirs. And Dillon, now working for Brigadier Charles Ferguson and Chief Inspector Sarah Bernstein in the cause of peace, can't afford to let anybody else get their hands on the gold. With all these cross-plotters bustling about waving their Walthers, the scene is set for one of those patented Higgins climaxes in which the blood will flow like Bushmills.
This time, though, the cast—even spitfire Kathleen Ryan, who comes across as one more dead-eyed avenger—seems glazed and over-rehearsed, as if they've run the familiar story through one Saturday matinee too many.
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