Customer Reviews

Swap

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In "Swap," a highly decorated U.S. Army special forces captain named David Garrison suffers a devastating injury in Vietnam; potentially crippled, blinded, and neurologically harmed, he is saved by a brilliant doctor. When Garrison insists on repaying the debt he feels he owes to the doctor, the doctor refers him to an older relative who happens to need something accomplished for which Garrison has the right skills.

The deed? Bring the relative's granddaughter out of Russia (this is during the height of the Cold War) to the United States. To accomplish this, Garrison forms a team of his military buddies, all with different but necessary skills, and then he comes up with his plan: kidnap a high-ranking Russian official, and then "swap" the official for the girl. The game's afoot!

While Wager's writing style is not literary, it is good enough to lift his books above the vast collection of dredge that one often finds in the thriller market. A number of Wager's books (though not this one) have been made into decent movies: "Viper Three" (as "Twilight's Last Gleaming"), "Telefon," and "58 Minutes" (as "Die Hard 2," with significant modifications, of course). At his best, which I think "Swap" represents, Wager is pretty close to Alistair MacLean -- and for a thriller writer, that's pretty good.