No Comebacks - by Frederick Forsyth (1982)

Writing gripping short stories is not easy. You do not have the time or the space in order to develop your characters or the story, and yet you are expected to write a story in which the characters are fleshed out to some degree, in which the story has developed enough that the reader does not feel cheated; the best short story is the one in which there is also a twist such that you get a sense of satisfaction after reading the story. There are not too many writers who are able to write effective short stories, and yet Frederick Forsyth has written multiple such compilations. No Comebacks is an interesting collection of 10 such short stories; most of these have twists, there are surprises in these stories, and the settings are also different for many of them. When you read the term, 'No Comebacks', it literally means that once you take an action, there is no way to get back to where you were.



The short stories that make up a part of this collection are:
"No Comebacks"
"There are no Snakes in Ireland"
"The Emperor"
"There are Some Days..."
"Money with Menaces"
"Used in Evidence"
"Privilege"
"Duty"
"A Careful Man"
"Sharp Practice"
The stories are very different, such as the opening one, which is the story of a rich successful businessman who can have everything he wants; however he falls for a married woman who refuses to leave her husband. The rich man sends a hitman, and then you get the twist in the story. Similarly, other stories also have their own twists.

Dogs of War - by Frederick Forsyth (1974)

Suppose you are in the turbulent time period of the 1960's - 1970's when various colonial ruled countries in Africa were reaching their independence. There were many different influences working in the countries at that point of time, the Soviet Union was trying to get regimes to be in its favor. Many of these countries were mineral rich, and there was a fight to get the rulers of the country in favor of companies so that they could get advantages of the mineral rights that were being awarded by these countries. It was not unheard of that a country's Government could be deposed off in a coup, although using mercenaries was not unheard of. As is normal with Forsyth, his novel is based on a lot of detailed research, enough that people who were in this line of business were astounded by the accuracy of these details.



In fact, there is a lot of buzz that the country that Forsyth refers to as Zangaro was actually the country of Equatorial Guinea; the book is supposed to be atleast partly based upon Forsyth's time as a reported in the Biafran War between Biafra and Nigeria, and in fact, as a part of researching this story, Forsyth was researching how to attempt a coup against the Government of Equatorial Guinea, and it was supposed to cost a ridiculously small sum of a quarter of a million dollars. There is a lot of speculation that there was an actual coup attempt against the Government that was spoiled by Spain.
The book draws mixed reviews, with many people praising the depth of description of the details; however, there was also criticism that there were too many details or preparation and not enough action. The story is about a British mining tycoon learning of a hot discovery of the priceless metal, platinum, in the Central African republic of Zangaro. However, the ruler is leaning towards the Soviet Union, who in turn decide to give him a KGB guard and also send in their own survey team. At the same time, the British tycoon Sir James Manson hires a mercenary, Carlo Alfred Thomas “Cat” Shannon, who had left Zangaro earlier after the side he was supporting failed. They decide to plan an operation in which they will kill the current leader, Jean Kimba, and replace him with their own man. The rest of the story is about the execution of the plan, and how it meets with its challenges.

The Odessa File - Frederick Forsyth (1972)

After the Second World War, there was a quest to hunt for the Nazis to bring them to justice, and yet, a number of them were never caught. Some of them escaped to various countries in South America, others were co-opted by both the Western and Communist countries and some of them tried to stay underground in Germany itself. There has always been the belief that there was an organization called ODESSA (Wikipedia link) that sought to provide an environment in which former SS (the most feared and devoted Nazi) members would be supported and provided escape routes, and such an organization would seem logical as the war was ending, and former SS members knew that they would be persecuted by both the Soviet and Western forces. No less a Nazi hunter than Simon Wiesenthal believed that such an organization existed and accounted for how SS members managed to escape the manhunt.



Frederick Forsyth normally researches his novels in great detail, and you can see the results in this novel itself. The novel details the way in which ODESSA works, and how a reporter manages to get involved with the network. The story is set in 1963, and deals with Peter Miller, a freelance crime reporter who reaches the apartment of a suicide victim - the suicide is that of Salomon Tauber, a Jewish Holocaust-survivor from the Riga concentration camp, which was commanded by Eduard Roschmann, also known as "The Butcher of Riga" (wikipedia). He soon obtains a diary, which records that Tauber had witnessed Roschmann shooting a German Army captain.
After finding that there is not much resolve to convict ex-Nazis, he is approached by former concentration camp survivors and soon, he is determined to get into the ODESSA. After some training, he manages to get inside after meeting a lawyer who works for ODESSA. He slowly starts getting information on the entire system, but a chance mistake means that he is revealed, and now there is a hitman after him. It is now a quest to get away from the hitman while trying to get Roschmann. Will he succeed ?

The Avenger - Frederick Forsyth (2003)

If one were to describe the main hero of the novel (The Avenger), one would call him a superhero of sorts. This is a person who is able to plan superbly, fight easily, and fulfill missions. Frederick Forsyth writes thrillers (he ran into similar problems that others did when the Cold war ended, and numerous plots between the East and the West could not be spun). Forysth is famous for detailed descriptions of the elements of his stories, based on a lot of research. He writes about people and jobs that we do not know too much about in detail, such as big businessmen, spies, mercenaries, gangsters, politicians, senior government officials, etc. And of course, there is a twist always there in the tail, there will be something in the end that is surprising.



The Avenger is basically the story about this lawyer in his 50's, who runs triathlons to keep in shape. He is Colin Dexter, a Vietnam War veteran who was involved in one of the most dangerous missions. Described in great detail, the mission was part of a group called the 'Tunnel Rats' who climb into the massive underground tunnels dug by the VietCong (with many traps and chances of getting killed very high). He and his commanding officer survive the war, although a large number of their unit does not.
Colin now has a new mission, something that he got into once his family disintegrated after his daughter got involved with Latino gang members and was killed after being forced into prostitution. He tracked down the gang members and killed them one by one, although his wife died due to the pain. He is now a small and unknown lawyer, but is also contactable as a man called 'The Avenger'. He will, for a fee, find a person from anywhere and get him back to the US for trail.
He has been put onto a mission where a volunteer US young man served in the Bosnian war, and then went missing. The man's grandfather is an extremely rich man, and hires The Avenger to find out what went wrong, and if somebody was involved, to get him for justice. And then starts the hunt, the man leading the mission in Bosnia was a sociopath called Zoran Zilic, a hitman for the Serbs, who moved out of there when that war ended and became an asset for a faction within the CIA who want to use him to get an upcoming terrorist, Osama Bin Laden (this happened before the September 11, 2001, attack). Colin has to stay a step ahead of Zoran and the CIA team that wants to stop him. Can he do this in time ?