I would probably never have read this for idly browsing books in Tesco’s and a two for a fiver deal. And I love reading books I would not ordinarily have read.
The Solitary Man is Hutch and he is a man that will run from any confrontation. He will run until there is nowhere to run and then he will come at you fighting. Having escaped from a high security prison in England he has run to Hong Kong where he has spent six years anonymous and building a successful business. Now his past has caught up with him and blackmailed into helping a member of the IRA escape from a Bangkok prison, Hutch finds himself a pawn. Not only in helping with the escape but in the DEA’s war on the trafficking of drugs from Burma.
In a world where every thriller now seems to feature the war on terror, Islam and some devious mob trying to undermine western governments (as if our governments need any help doing that), this book was a welcome change. But that is probably because it was first published in 1997 when the war was about drugs and the IRA.
While the characters are sometimes plucked from cliché Hutch is original and dogged and has stayed with me well after the last page of this great, twisting and turning story. Which takes us from Hampshire, England to the clamour and smog of Thailand to the dense jungles of Burma.
Two downsides. Probably the best character besides Hutch is Jennifer Leigh, a balls to the wall reporter who is instantly likeable but sadly gets trapped in a dead end story thread. And during the first half of the book I often found myself lost as the multiple story threads were concocted without context to each other. This was not a problem during the second half or as we neared the rollercoaster end, which was page turning.
In summary, twelve years after first being published this is a great summer read in the style of Frederick Forsyth and for me, earlier Tom Clancy stories.
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