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BANNERMAN'S GHOSTS
by John R. Maxim
William Morrow, March 2003
390 pages
$24.95
ISBN: 006000584X


Buy in the UK | Buy in Canada

BANNERMAN'S GHOSTS is not a typical thriller. It is more a cerebral thriller, as there is little action, but what there is, occurs in the last 50 pages or so. Paul Bannerman is a retired assassin, living in Westport, with colleagues in the same profession. There is a lot of backstory in previous books, which would help the reader to understand how these operatives work.

The book opens with Alameo, a white rebel leader in Angola, getting ready to attack VaalChem, a site where bio-warfare weapons are being worked on. This is in retaliation for the death of his lover, Sara, whose head was cut off and sent to him as a warning to stay out of Artemus Bourne's affairs. Bourne, it turns out, is one of the wealthiest, most vilest, persons alive. He has interests in every country, and even thinks he owns several government employees who report to him on various operations taking place.

Bourne's main henchman, Chester Lilly, is responsible for Sara's death, and the inevitable message of sending her head back to Alameo. In his retaliation, Alameo sends Bourne the heads of three people: Savran Bobik, a Russian who worked both sides of the game; Cecil Winfield, the head of VaalChem; and Peter Kruger, who was testing viral bugs on human beings in South Africa. Now, Bourne wants Elizabeth Stride, known as The Black Angel in various circles. It seems Alameo must also be Martin Kessler, the only man Stride has ever loved or cared for.

As the chess game between Bourne and Kessler starts, Elizabeth has retired to Hilton Head, where she is helping to raise Aisha, her adopted daughter, who is staying in the area, due to the death of her parents in the Middle East. When Aisha is kidnapped along with her friend Nadia, who Lilly thinks is Elizabeth, the game takes on a personal motive for Bannerman's group as they had met both recently.

The other reason Bannerman's group gets involved is due to the recent beating of their friend, Roger Clew, by Lilly and two of his thugs. It seems Lilly also tried to scalp Lilly because of a fight between the two when Clew messed Lilly's hair up. Within this atmosphere, a freighter carrying a vial of Marburg/smallpox is being held captive off the coast of Liberia, so as not to infect the country.

When confronted with all this information, Bourne denies that he ever knew anything like this was going on in his labs. However, Bannerman's ghosts, the operatives who can come and go without being seen, know that Bourne has kept a whole slew of the viruses in his basement, hidden behind a wine rack.

BANNERMAN'S GHOSTS deals with a lot of topical issues, but also, shows the scope of how operatives, or assassins, can learn to blend into society, and help people to fight injustice, using their own methods, when the enemy seems to be above the law. But, moreover, in this book, there was a story of love, not just between Kessler and Stride, but also learning that people change, and help those, who are willing to learn how to survive whatever comes there way.

My only recommendation to people who want to read this book, is to find the others in this series to read them to learn how Bannerman and his group became what they are.

Reviewed by Steven M. Sill, May 2003

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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)


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