Ultra

Rating:
Summary: ULTRA - excessive, extreme, to the max!
Review: Into a world where war, particularly the Gulf War, is but a proving ground for the next, walks Peter March, a London Times correspondent, based in Washington DC.

In such a world, much traveled, I suspect, by the author Tim Sebastian, March comes face to face with a reality based on both perception and levels. In the aftermath of a chemical 'incident', the lives of those involved become inextricably linked and extinguished as events unravel.

A cavalcade of corpses carries you forward, conspiracies abound, and Sebastian feeds you the pieces with an eerie plausibility. Well researched, better written. I would read it again, if only to revel in its evident craftsmanship, let alone to tally the body count.

Rating:
Summary: Unbalanced thriller told with journalistic vigour
Review: Tim Sebasitian is a respected television journalist with the BBC and has specialised in reporting military action.It undoubtedly this which imparts the sense of urgerncy to his prose and gives the novel a brisk pace that makes it eminently readable.Sadly the book is politically jejeune and has an anti-Americanism that verges on being hysterical at times.
It is particularly paranoid about the upper echelons of the American military -industrial complex and one can imagine the book giving comfort to the conspiracy theorists with their lamentable naivety everywhere the book is read.
Ultra is a chemical weapon,developed by the US for use in the Gulf.Ten years after the war a group of US veterans,disillusioned by their government, resolve to steal a consignment of the gas and release it at a White House reception presided over by the President to honour Gulf War veterans. Stirred into the mix are a liberal Brit journalist,Peter March,who is estranged from his US scientist wife,a society hostess Leah Killeen whose ex-lover General Lovett is now speaker of the House and the ultimate behind the scenes manipulator the maker and breaker of Presidents, Piedmont, a man who does not scruple to order the death of his daughter when she threatens to undermine his palns

The paranoia is not to my taste and nor are its politics but Sebastian punches things along with a brisk pace and purposeful prose Just keep the politics out in futute TS baby and I might give you a bit more respect.I want a bit more balance in my thrillers.I simply do not believe the real issues are so simple and the tone evokes those tedious 1970's movies /books in which anyone with an A US government job was a thug.
Recommemded to liberals among the thriller reading community or to those who can ignore politics and just sit back and enjoy a strong story However I agree with Stokely Carmichael that everything is political and hence my low rating for the tale Modify the politics it would score a 4