Vultures in the Playground

by A. Sparrow

Archie Parsons. Malaria consultant. Mosquito husbandry. Cat fancying. Long walks through West African shanty towns at sunset. That last activity nearly gets Archie killed fresh off a plane in Liberia. Robbed and beaten, he is lucky to get away with bruises, contusions and a stolen passport.Turns out, these weren’t run-of-the-mill thugs. They work for Xtraktiv, a black ops security firm contracted by a consortium of oil companies that aims to steal Archie’s identity and murder him. They seek access to Archie’s professional network, particularly his connections with Health Ministries, to facilitate a killing spree of obstructive politicians and activists in and around the Gulf of Guinea. These executions are to be orchestrated by their top assassin—a man code named Agent Black—who becomes personally involved in the second attempt to take down Archie at Robertsfield Airport. But while tangling with Archie in a terminal washroom, Black is killed in a freak accident involving a slick floor and a hard sink. The consortium naturally assumes that their man prevailed. This is Agent Black, after all. After Black’s remains are efficiently disposed of by local contractors, the consortium blindly shuttles Archie all over West Africa, providing airline tickets, weapons and intelligence via briefcases left in luxury hotel suites. For a time he plays along, exploiting his mistaken identity to warn intended targets of their peril. Once the consortium discovers their error, they dispatch Black’s East African counterpart, a man code named Agent White, to set things straight. Archie finds himself pitted against the most brutal corporate assassin on the African continent. The US State Department won’t help him because he’s officially deceased. And the consortium has infiltrated the diplomatic corps to its highest levels. The only person who dares come to his assistance is his cat-sitter Melissa, a young woman of Caribbean extraction whose shadowy past renders her much more formidable than Archie realizes.

Genres: Thriller

283 pages, Kindle Edition

First published July 7, 2011

Reviews

[L.T. Fawkes · Rating 4 out of 5]

A. Sparrow, FREE **** The four stars should tell you that, in spite of a terrible title and quite a few editing errors, this is a good book.

A PHD, working for an NGO as a Malaria Consultant in eastern Africa, suddenly finds himself in the middle of a bunch of assassins-for-hire because of an identity switch. Tense, non-stop action all over eastern Africa. Interesting characters, good plot, lots of local color and techie stuff.

[Kristi · Rating 2 out of 5]

Though Vultures in the Playground by A. Sparrow is a work of fiction, the subject of the continuing violence and upheaval for Africans is very real and in the present day. I applaud Sparrow for addressing this topic and for bringing into question the corruption that allows this turmoil to continue. It's corruption that isn't just done by African governments or people, but corruption that is manipulated and used by other governments who wish to use the ensuing chaos to further their own ends.

I know it may seem as if this would be impossible. We just don't wish to believe that "evolved" societies would do such a thing, but I assure it happens. You don't have to take my word for it though. If you're interested, I welcome you to take a few minutes and research it for yourselves. I think you'll be astounded at what horrible things are still being done in this day and age.

Again, I nod to Sparrow for broaching a topic that many would prefer to ignore. I only wish I could I say I loved the story as much as the topic of the story. Unfortunately, Sparrow's main character was too weak of a personality to hold up. This is sad because I have always wanted a story where an average person could be the hero. Why do they all have to be some super soldier, or a former spy, or a special forces person, or any number of person who isn't what we all are?

I now believe that the problem may lie in the fact that when we try to place an average person in the story we try to make them so average that they actually end up being below average.

Archie is a traveler of the world, he visits many foreign locale working with a charity trying to provide humanitarian aid to the people. He's described as a flabby, middle-aged man with an ex-wife, who could no longer handle his traveling for work, and no one else whom he's close too. Archie's failure to learn from his past travels, his inability to see the present truth for what it is, and his lack of willingness to understand the path he must now follow is too much to expect the reader to accept.

Overall, Vultures in the Playground deserves high praise for a difficult topic tackled and brought out to be viewed by all, but fails to match that standard with the main character who is showing us this beautiful and dangerous world.

*Disclosure: I received this book for free in exchange for a review*

[S G · Rating 1 out of 5]

In broad strokes, the story is engaging. In the details, however, it is implausible. A doctor doing work in West Africa for various NGOs gets mixed up in a plot to kill a few high profile trouble makers across the region. Along the way he inconceivably usurps the identity of the would-be assassin, and no one realizes it. He also has his neighbor/cat-sitter along as a side-kick.

Even if I could keep on reading the silly plot, I was hung up on the number of grammatical errors and typos. More than once there were missing punctuation marks. Other times words were clearly auto-corrected to the wrong word, leaving the reader with "the" instead of "they." The book was a free download from Amazon, but really, even on a tiny budget, the author should have been able to proof read the book.

I did not get past the 50% mark, but have no desire to finish it, so calling this one over.

[Kim Minehart · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very interesting!