A great action thriller, like the books of John Le Carre.
From the Publisher
Former British Special Forces officer Gord Brown cannot forget how he was ordered to abandon the Shiite people of southern Iraq to the bloody counterattack of Saddam Hussein's tanks. Drummed out of his regiment for insubordination, the disgraced Brown has obstinately made himself one promise: he will never again walk out on people striving for their freedom. Bitterly working in self-imposed exile on a failing fish farm in the Highlands of Scotland, he is found by three Guatemalan Indians sent to Europe to recruit a "fighting man" for a desperate and idealistic uprising against the military dictatorship in one of the world's most oppressed countries. They want Gord Brown, even if nobody else does. He flies to Cuba, then on with a dozen men to a rough landing strip in the rain forest of Guatemala. This extraordinarily moving and powerful novel tells the story of Gord's epic march through the jungle and across the high mountains toward Guatemala City. Each of the men and women who join him has a story to tell, and each lends momentum to Gord's campaign, until a hopeless dream becomes a burning reality. Pitted against Gord's untrained and outgunned army are the elite Kaibil battalion, aided by Tom Schultz, an American pilot who is also a scarred veteran of Desert Storm. The past and future of Gord Brown and Tom Schultz are irreversibly entwined in the destiny of this beautiful, terrifying country. One will be a winner, one a loser, in a war without mercy. The Fighting Man is Seymour at the height of his powers. Written with intensity, compassion, and a formidable narrative drive, it is a story that will stand alongside the great novels of courage and adventure.
Former British Special Forces officer Gord Brown cannot forget how he was ordered to abandon the Shiite people of southern Iraq to the bloody counterattack of Saddam Hussein's tanks. Drummed out of his regiment for insubordination, the disgraced Brown has obstinately made himself one promise: he will never again walk out on people striving for their freedom. Bitterly working in self-imposed exile on a failing fish farm in the Highlands of Scotland, he is found by three Guatemalan Indians sent to Europe to recruit a "fighting man" for a desperate and idealistic uprising against the military dictatorship in one of the world's most oppressed countries. They want Gord Brown, even if nobody else does. He flies to Cuba, then on with a dozen men to a rough landing strip in the rain forest of Guatemala. This extraordinarily moving and powerful novel tells the story of Gord's epic march through the jungle and across the high mountains toward Guatemala City. Each of the men and women who join him has a story to tell, and each lends momentum to Gord's campaign, until a hopeless dream becomes a burning reality. Pitted against Gord's untrained and outgunned army are the elite Kaibil battalion, aided by Tom Schultz, an American pilot who is also a scarred veteran of Desert Storm. The past and future of Gord Brown and Tom Schultz are irreversibly entwined in the destiny of this beautiful, terrifying country. One will be a winner, one a loser, in a war without mercy. The Fighting Man is Seymour at the height of his powers. Written with intensity, compassion, and a formidable narrative drive, it is a story that will stand alongside the great novels of courage and adventure.
