The Eyewitness

Rating:
Summary: A thinking man's thriller
Review: Jack Solomon works for an aid organization in Sarajevo. His job is to identify the remains of the many dead bodies- the casualties of the war. The work is quite grisly, yet, with the use of DNA, the work gets done. One day Jack is asked to look into the remains of twenty six bodies found in a truck at the bottom of a lake. The bodies have been in place for years, yet, the frigid waters have preserved them remarkably well. A young child clutching a teddy bear is among the victims. The horrific nature of the crimes gets to Jack above all others. He insists on trying to solve the crime and does so by searching for the one surviving relative. His search takes him to the criminal underworld of Sarajevo, as well as, the red light district of London and encounters with the Russian Mafia.
For a thriller, Stephen Leather's books have a languid pacing. They are character rich works that delve into whatever locale they are set. There is much local color interjected in the work. Once the topic is discussed and the plot is truly underway, the pacing begins to pick up quite rapidly. The climactic scene is literally quite explosive. The red herring at the end of the book is a bit farfetched and the conclusion a bit less than satisfying. Consider Stephen Leather's books to be thinking man's thriller more along the lines of LeCarre than Ludlum or Higgins.