Holding the Zero - 2000

Summary
Gus Peake should have kept his job as a transport manager and stayed at home, but an old family friendship draws him to the remote wastes of Northern Iraq and to a savage, forgotton war between Kurdish guerillas and Sadam Hussein's military strength.

To the brutal, no-quarter combat, Peake can bring the skills he learned as a marksman. But he has never before fired a shot in anger, and if he is to survive he must turn the marksmanship, hard-learned on the shooting range, into a killing weapon. There is no room for mistakes on the field of battle and he must quickly learn to deal out random death at a long distance, and the help of the guerrillas to reach their goal, the city of Kirkuk, the old capital of the Kurdish people.

From Baghdad, Iraq sends Major Karim Aziz, who travels with the reputation of being the most dedicated and professional sniper in Saddam's army. For both men their duel, from which only one can walk away, becomes an obsession. And it will take only one shot, echoing in the mountains and valleys, to settle the score...

Extract
His life had passed within a second. He had no knowledge of a .338 bullet fired at a range of 725 metres and fracturing his spinal column between the second and third thoracic vertebrae. He could not know that his wife and son would cower under the table of their home and be too terrorised to open the door, run to the radio and send the coded signal summoning immediate help. Nor would he know that, as the dawn spread light on the paths made by his sheep over the precipice face of the cliff, men would scramble up the heights, break his radio, smash his television, cut the cables to the cameras, drinks his coffee, find his biscuit tin and the smaller box holding four gold chains, and he could not know what the men did to his wife and son...

Reviews
"One of the best plotters in the business" TIME OUT

"Seymour is writing at the peak of his powers...in a class of his own" THE TIMES

"One of Britain's foremost pacey thriller writers." SUNDAY EXPRESS

"Stunning...Seymour on top form." MAIL ON SUNDAY

Customer Review
"We have had a spate of books over the last couple of years following the exploits of cardboard heroes in the Gulf, Iraq, Afghanistan etc. Most have been predictable, stereotyped and instantly forgettable. This book is the exception.

A British competition marksman involves himself in the strife of the used and abused Kurds to honour a debt owed by his grandfather. With no military or services training of any description the odds of him surviving long are less than slim.

From first to last this book keeps up a cracking pace with a strong believable characters who absorb the reader thoroughly. A great plot with a final twist that I hadn't anticipated. Congratulations and many thanks Mr Seymour. Reading entertainment at its best."