This United State

Tweed & Co. #16

by Colin Forbes

The Prime Minister has been assassinated and Britain is in danger. Is a giant power out to absorb Britain into its own system? The trail leads Tweed and his team to Switzerland and into the Black Forest. The climax takes place on Romney Marsh as a hostile naval task force approaches Britain.

Genres: Thriller, Fiction, Espionage, Suspense, Terrorism, British Literature, Adventure

544 pages, Hardcover

First published December 1, 1998

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]

4,25 stars- Nederlandse hardcover

[Craig · Rating 1 out of 5]

Whilst the underlying premise is perhaps worthy of some merit, the aspect that remains with me most is the appalling dialogue and the blatant sexism. Clumsy narrative with the various character viewpoints telling us their thoughts about other people's feelings, motives, etc. And I always get worried when I see "As you know..." in the dialogue, which to me translates as "If we were really a close-knit team working in international espionage you would know this, but because this is a book and I have to keep the reader up to speed I'll state what would be the blindingly obvious to you for the benefit of a layman."

[Chas · Rating 1 out of 5]

Total nonsense, almost as bad as Dan Brown. It had some accidental comic relief with the concept of Cockney Special Forces...

"Fire! ... luvaduck...ave a banana..."

[Max Delacruz · Rating 3 out of 5]

Although the book was compelling enough to read, the ending reminded me a lot of an episode of Scooby-Doo where the villain is unmasked and the mystery is explained.

[Graham Dragon · Rating 3 out of 5]

"This United State" is one of a series featuring Tweed, Deputy Director of MI6. It is a good thriller in its way as long as you are seeking just a thriller and not fine writing. Colin Forbes can keep a reader engrossed, but makes too many errors (of style and background information, as well as of language) to be a really good writer.

Some occasional spelling errors irritated me. Just one example, but not the only one was "You won't have to much time to pursue your personal affairs" as opposed to "You won't have too much time to pursue your personal affairs". I particularly recalled this one as the next sentence amused me given where the actual spelling error is: "You couldn't care to spell that last word?". Even that sentence seemed a bit shaky, as I think "wouldn't" would have been a better choice than "couldn't".

I also get the distinct feeling that Forbes has not assumed his readers will necessarily be very quick off the mark. At one point, one of the "good men" kills one of a group of twelve thugs. He rings his boss and says "There were twelve little black men. Now there are eleven." Pretty obvious what he meant, so there was really no need for Forbes then to write "The twelve men ... had now been reduced to eleven." I think the reader would need to be thicker than the majority of the thugs in this novel to have needed that explanation, and that would really take some doing!

The villains are highly clichéd, right down to an ugly, hunchbacked little man.

Forbes clearly viewed Americans as significantly inferior to us Brits, and even to the continentals (who we do not really get to know well enough to see whether he thought them below us, but I suspect he did). I felt the description of the attempted attack by SEALs was quite contemptuous of what I believe is a rather better special operations force than Forbes believed. They came across to me more like a National Guard unit than highly trained SEALs. This particular scene very much reminded me of the equally foolhardy attack by the US Army Rangers in the Jack Higgins novel "The Eagle Has Landed" - another novel in which a British author rather unfairly lambasts US special forces.

The premise was highly topical even though this novel was written in 1998. A USA led (or at least influenced) by a maverick who is happy to use force and deception to expand the country. Wanting to make Britain, as opposed to Canada, the 51st State. I couldn't help thinking about our present international political situation as I read this novel, and that certainly helped get me right into it.

Again, I would not suggest reading this novel if you are looking for good literature, but I enjoyed reading it as a gripping thriller. The kind that makes you want to keep reading to see what happens next (even though Forbes can be rather predictable).

[RogerC · Rating 1 out of 5]

I was so looking forward to reading this book. The synopsis marked it out as a rather different slant on the 'terrorist/thriller genre. However, sad to have to say, it is a load of puerile rubbish.

The dialogue is a mix of Enid Blyton 'Famous Five' and Jolly Hockey Sticks with comments along the lines of ....'He knocked on Tweeds door. Do come in old chap replied Tweed, coffee asked Tweed, rather he replied. In that case said Tweed I will pour'. Or....'Are those chaps reliable, do they have weapons?...Oh yes terribly reliable and they have guns and even bazookas'. Then there are the ladies involved in the plot who are straight out of an Edwardian drama or straight from a Swiss Finishing School with their primness and 'awfully' correct diction......yet this is supposed to be set sometime after 1991. My comments on the speech are not extracts but merely placed to illustrate the banal tone in which this book is written. In essence in my opinion it is a waste of paper.

[Anita · Rating 2 out of 5]

The plot of this thriller reads as though it was conceived by a schoolboy with an over-active imagination. The characters are caricatures, the Americans all loud mouthed gangsters, and the woman in the story without exception are described as attractive sexually desirable objects. Most of the dialogue is totally inappropriate. No real people speak in this manner - whether American or English.
Having written the above, I am forced to admit that with Trump recently being elected the President of the United States the plot of this story becomes less unbelievable. My reading of the book was very timely. Perhaps it is predictive and the United Kingdom, rather than Canada, will become the fifty first state of the United States!!!
Only 2 stars for the narrative, but maybe a 3 star rating for the visionary idea!

[Karen · Rating 2 out of 5]

A rather unbelievable plot that the USA plans to make Great Britain it’s 51st state. The Prime Minister of Great Britain has been assassinated as well as senior ministers in France and Germany. An informant has been killed by a mysterious marked, they call the Phantom. There is a gang of American henchman, with diplomatic passports setting bombs around London. The trail leads Tweed and his team to Basel, Switzerland then into the Black Forest in Germany, Strasbourg and then to Paris. The final climax takes place on Romney Marsh as a hostile US Navy taskforce approaches Britain, but Tweed and his team win the day.

[Neville · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this story, and it follows very much the patten of others in the Tweed series.
Strange as it may seem, it falls into very much the impression I have of America under a Trump administration....
The good old US of A, want to make the UK the 51st state of America and go to underhanded means to try and achieve this goal. The eventual aim is to rule Europe.
Tweed and Co see some strange things happening and start to join the dots.

[Vijayakumar Belur · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bizzare plot and main action of the hero is to travel across continents with his lackies to listen or speak two dilogues. To boot to do this he stays in luxury hotels. I think the story would move without the hero as all the leg work is done by his lackies.

[Diogenes · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is the first and only book by Colin Forbes that I have read. I found it very disconcerting the way the author tries to put sentences together. It would appear that Mr Forbes requires lessons in syntax.
Finally the author should know that Hoboken is in New Jersey and not New York.

[Carolyn · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’m re-reading the Tweed series after a 20 year gap and whilst some hold up well, “The United State” hasn’t aged as well as others. An element of predictability, an obvious bias and a couple of loose ends make it a less well rounded read.

[Paschalis]

elibrary

[Kathy Bougie · Rating 5 out of 5]

never read it, but a dude across me at mcdonalds had his face glued to the pages, it was intense. bet it's a great book

[XingBack · Rating 3 out of 5]

old old book reviews

"I really liked the stories about tweed, pula, new man and morler"

[Ian · Rating 2 out of 5]

The characters didn't feel real and seemed to be stereotypes.

[Julia · Rating 2 out of 5]

Abgebrochen - hat mich nach ca. einem Viertel immer noch nicht gepackt. Es wurden jede Menge verschiedener Personen eingeführt, ohne dass die Handlung groß vorangegangen wäre.

[Sanda · Rating 4 out of 5]

I just finised the book. Interesting reading.

[Jim Bowen · Rating 2 out of 5]

Oh good grief. From the mid-1980s to the early-1990s, I read a good number of Colin Forbes books. They were never going to be Dickens (or John Le Carre), but they were a good fun read. However, as time went by, they became increasingly criticised as jingoistic horse poop. I'll admit I didn't see it at first, but by this book in the series, I was inclined to agree with them. As a consequence, this book has sat on my shelf for 20-some years, without being read.

I finally got round to reading this book this week. It wasn't worth it. In this book, Tweed, the Deputy-Director of MI-5, and his posse of supporters have to fight off an attack from a supposed ally that no one saw coming. They hare about the continent, gathering the proof they need, stopping crooked currency from flooding the country (and so destabilising the economy), involving civilians in the defence of the realm, fighting off dumb marines on Romney Marshes, and dealing allied aircraft carriers in the Channel.

I'm not going to lie, it was a very silly book. So silly, in fact, that if "stretched credibility" could be embodied as a person, it's be saying "Oh really... I really don't think that's remotely credible." A LOT.

[Steve · Rating 2 out of 5]

I've given this book 2 stars (I've also given it to charity *smiling*) as I've read far worse. But it wasn't that gripping or exciting at all. I didn't even get past ch.5 before I got really bored with it. I think it was meant to be a gripping agent thriller, it wasn't.
If a book isn't a gripping joy to read, then I don't waste my time on it. This book lacked character depth, an 'essential' ingredient to almost all the books I read. In fact to 'any' great work of fiction (short of The Gruffalo, which is an excellent childrens book btw).

What I learned from this book? Two things; life is too short and precious to finish this book *smiling*; and maybe it's not that hard to get published after all *laughing*.

[Craig Tonkin · Rating 3 out of 5]

The storyline kept me entertained however it was too "all over the place" on a few occasions and loaded with too many co-incidences.

The fact that all the parties, both good and bad, always ended up in each other's face and in the same hotel in various cities became a tad annoying. Cities have several hotels. The odds that everyone ends up at the same hotel each time they travel makes it seem "cheesy".

The storyline is shockingly prophetic and I hope the Island Nation of Britain remains strong and never succumbs to superpower indulgences.

[Mikeh5972 · Rating 3 out of 5]

Rather disappointing as a story and absurdly far - fetched. If anything it would have been a more thrilling tale if it had been much shorter. I find that Colin Forbes has a very irritating habit of thinking of dozens of ways of carrying dialogue forward, e.g. Tweed asserted, Paula interjected, Newman mused and so on. I have never noticed this with any other author. It is surprising that the editors seem unaware of this as it is a regular feature of this author's writing.

[Bettyjoy Engelbrecht]

A truly well told story, well written, a page turner that once into I could not put down. American ,or rather a group in America, decide to make Great Britain ungovernable in order to make them the 51st state of the USA, only to be defeated by a small group of well organised British Secret Service Members. A really good read.

[Jim · Rating 1 out of 5]

I have enjoyed some Colin Forbes books in the past, The Janus Man for example is a good read, however, I do not think I will be reading any more after this offering. If this storyline was produced from the imagination of a 15 year old school boy, he would still deserve an 'F'
Avoid this book!

[Peter · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very good read, by a very good author.

[Ashley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant book to read...

[Hannah Etherton · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good read, cross spanning lots of countries, nice descriptive tale with plenty of action ticking it along. Reads like a Colin Forbes

[Paul · Rating 3 out of 5]

No ham sandwiches throughout, but Sheperds Pie at end! I now these books needed to be shaken up a bit, but I thought maybe by killing off a main character, not changing the food orders.

[Thomas West · Rating 2 out of 5]

R has Read it 2

[Michelle Ohara]

Great Story Very Compelling