Precipice

Tweed & Co. #14

by Colin Forbes

Rejecting terrorist involvement, Tweed senses the danger but cannot identify the source. His search drives Paula Grey, Bob Newman and Philip Cardon underground in Europe, tracked by the sinister MOVAK. And Philip is trapped in an emotional situation with a strange woman, who could be the vital key.

Genres: Thriller, Fiction, Espionage, Mystery, Crime, Adventure

478 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1996

About the author

Raymond Harold Sawkins was a British novelist, who mainly published under the pseudonym Colin Forbes, but also as Richard Raine, Jay Bernard and Harold English. He only published three of his first books under his own name.Sawkins wrote over 40 books, mostly as Colin Forbes. He was most famous for his long-running series of thriller novels in which the principal character is Tweed, Deputy Director of the Secret Intelligence Service.

Sawkins attended The Lower School of John Lyon in Harrow, London. At the age of 16 he started work as a sub-editor with a magazine and book publishing company. He served with the British Army in North Africa and the Middle East during World War II. Before his demobilization he was attached to the Army Newspaper Unit in Rome. On his return to civilian life he joined a publishing and printing company, commuting to London for 20 years, until he became successful enough to be a full-time novelist.

Sawkins was married to a Scots-Canadian, Jane Robertson (born 31 March 1925, died 1993). Together they had one daughter, Janet.Sawkins died of a heart attack on August 23, 2006.

Sawkins was often quoted as personally visiting every location he features in his books to aid the authenticity of the writing. As a result, there is detailed description of the places where the action in his books takes place.

Fury (1995) was inspired by the courage of his wife before she died, and he set it apart from his other novels “because of the strong emotion and sense of loss that runs through it”.

Just one of Forbes' novels was made into a film: Avalanche Express, directed by Mark Robson and starring Lee Marvin and Robert Shaw, which was released in 1979 to generally poor reviews.

Reviews

[Belinda Vlasbaard · Rating 4 out of 5]

3,75 sterren- Nederlandse hardcover - libaryboek

[Igor Ljubuncic · Rating 3 out of 5]

As classic spysy as spy stuff gets. Tweed is back, and so am I. Now, I must admit I was reading a lot of Cold War era books at this time, roughly 20 plus years ago, so I had a whole plethora of piniat ... books in the genre to compare, including but not limited to (fine print, within 30 days) The Fourth Protocol, The Janus Man, a whole bunch of Ludlums, some techno thrillers from Clancy and even a turbo-techno thriller from Dale Brown (NOT Dan Brown).

The Janus Man is another book by Forbes, and that one I thoroughly enjoyed. Precipice is a slightly less interesting work, with a slower and more predictable plot. There was a lot of drinking, a lot of snow in Switzerland, the usual colorful international cast of villains - think Bond and the world being so much bigger before we had Google Street - and an ending that is a little bit cliche. Likable not as powerful as The Janus Man. Probably because the story felt smaller. I guess you need a good ole nuclear threat and a bunch of Soviets to make it spicy. You can even see in the film today. Once upon a time, it was all about glamor as the enemy was big and red and menacing and far far away. Now that the world's become a fragmented village, we have more focus on characters and how vulnerable our top psychos all are. But you need larger-than-life spy agents to enjoy this genre, otherwise, it's missing the point.

Ergo, Precipice fell a little short ... mwuahahahahaha.

Still a good book.

No limerick today. A pun was enough.

Igor

[IAN SPEIGHT · Rating 3 out of 5]

In this 1996 thriller, Tweed, Paula Grey and Bob Newman are on the trail of billionaire Leopold Brazil, a communications tycoon. Tweed suspects he has a major world-threatening plan after seeing photographs of a rogue satellite being launched. Brazil, with a base in Switzerland and a residence in Dorset, England, hides behind heavies and devious lawyers alike.

For some reason I can't work out, I really enjoyed Colin Forbes series featuring Tweed & his cohorts. This is another for the collection if memory serves it was the 12th in the series? I could be wrong?. However as always, the characters seem almost to perfect. "Marler produced one of several pairs of handcuffs he always carried" this being set in 1996 therefore safe to assume the wouldn't be the plastic tie type but the metal ones. So where do you carry several pairs of metal handcuffs on a daily basis? "Butler for a big man could move quickly" "Eve had a photographic memory" as well as "An acute sense of hearing" "Tweed needed little sleep" "Marler the best shop in Europe" etc They aren't people they are superhumans! As I mentioned the book was written in 1996, But dear me do the characters to a person are some of the worst fashion sense I've ever read about. How would a spy not stick out of a crowd wearing wrap-around dark glasses & a deerstalker!? which the author would have us believe "Make it impossible to anyone who had not met him, to recognise him!? WHAT!!? Add to that an enormous amount of time errors, While It's Nighttime in the UK, It seems that Switzerland is 12 hours behind!?

Yet despite all those car crash points & there are plenty of others, you do find yourself drawn into the story, the authors love of Switzerland again features in this novel Geneva, Zurich and also the Swiss Valais canton as well as Dorset in England. The bad guy is well written & may be one of the authors best bad guys Leopold Brazil, a communications tycoon. Add to the plot a mystery assassin called the Motorman and Eve Warner, a disgruntled accomplice of Brazil's who nobody can trust and despite all the nickles you have an enjoyable enough novel.

[Shameem · Rating 4 out of 5]

There’s likely not a Tweed & Co. book I won’t enjoy! Precipice was as expected - consistent with most of Forbes’ thriller/adventures. I preferred the ending to this book compared to many others in the series, actually. A bit slower moving than some of Forbes’ others, but not in a manner that detracted from the plot.

[Lesley Mayho · Rating 2 out of 5]

For me it was very old fashioned in its writing and I had to check when it was written as I thought it read like something out of the fifties. It also had a very predictable plot.

[Becky · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent thrilling book

[Gerard Hulsebos · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well written and surely unputdownable .. in 1996.
But for today it is too slow , too antitech and very unbelievable. Some remarks about Ukraine and Russia are spot on , now 27 years later.

[Marie Bouteille · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's a very typical easy-to-read spy novel with all the traditional ingredients

[Perry Van Wesel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Personally for me this is a 4. But I can understand people giving this lower. The story is nothing special, but it's fun with enough action and twists. It's a fun spy-novel

[Jim Bowen · Rating 1 out of 5]

I remember Colin Forbes being regularly in the British bestseller lists through my 20s. Quite how he pulled that off writing preposterous nonsense like this is beyond me.

It stars Tweed as a remarkably hands on deputy director of MI6, and a posse of spy who could have been out of "stereotypical central casting". I mean Tweed, who if you believe the books has been in place since the 1970s is called Tweed for God's sake. Could there be anything more stereotypically British?

Anyhow he's doing battle with a multi-millionaire former CEO, who wants to bring the world to the brink of WWIII, to bring back British stiff upper lip. Because that makes perfect sense, doesn't it?

In short, it's daft. If you can put up with all these stodgy goings on that was probably out of place(and date) when it was written, you'll probably enjoy it. I'm not sure if anyone else will.

[Nigel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another good outing for Tweed and Co. There is nothing new in this instalment as Tweed is battling yet another megalomaniac intent and world domination, a secret assassin who is stalking members of the team and the witnesses encountered during the investigation, not to mention trouble from Chief Inspector Buchanan. Still for all the formulaic elements I really like the stories and always look forward to reading each of his novels.

[Priya · Rating 1 out of 5]

I enjoyed the Tweed adventures when I was in college, but looks like I've grown out of it now. Couldn't go past the 30% mark - it was way too in-your-face kind of narrative, leaving nothing to imagination and having very predictable sequences.

[Manoj B Unni · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pros: Smart & unpredictable action thriller
Cons: the climax

To read more about my review, click here

[Lysergius · Rating 3 out of 5]

Entertaining Cold War spy romp.

[Sue · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved the twists and turns. Bit hard to get in to at first.

[Peter · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good read by a good author.

[Sada Mamedova]

An excellent book.

[Mrs N · Rating 5 out of 5]

great