Yes, that Hugh Laurie, aka Dr. Gregory House.
Retired Scots Guard Thomas Lang is bouncing around bodyguard
gigs. In Amsterdam, he is approached by a stranger to kill Alexander Wolff, an
American businessman working in London (turns out the mark is the guy who
approached him, checking to see if Lang is a good man). Lang decides to warn
Wolff, but meets and bests a merc, and starts an affair in his mind with Sarah,
the mark’s daughter.
Lang learns that Wolff is under investigation for drug
running (false), but also for what he knows about a super secret attack
helicopter specific for terrorist attacks. But it’s too expensive, so the Dutch
middleman cooks up a terrorist attack in Casablanca (and gets Lang to
infiltrate the group) to display the copter’s capabilities for all the world to
see on CNN.
A whole bunch of subplots to confuse the reader, make that
‘layer’ the plot, are woven in. Honestly, once I got halfway through, it was a
struggle to finish. But, hey, it was written by House, right? It bore the
hallmarks of the TV show where House would go off on long, seemingly unrelated
harangues with subordinates and colleagues only to actually have a point. Brit humor, er, humour. So I’m guessing that the House character
wasn’t constructed entirely by the writers/producers; Laurie fashioned the
banter for both the show and the book similarly. OK to start the book, but it got old quickly. Never really got a rapport with any character and the plot reveals were obtuse and so widely spaced that it was hard to keep the changing plot straight. Supposedly, a screenplay has
been prepared, but I’m not getting in line.
East Coast Don
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