Customer Reviews

The Veteran: Five Heart-Stopping Stories

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(11)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

What do a young art dealer who was cheated by his boss, an unknown murdered man in a British public housing project, an American couple in Sienna at the Palio (a race going back to the 13th century), a family returning from vacation in Thailand, and the only man to survive Custer's last stand all have in common? When Frederick Forsyth writes about them, you will find yourself following every word and turning every page.

This is an absolutely remarkable collection of short stories running from the very realistic through the surprising to the supernatural. His portrait of a saint in Sienna is brilliant and compelling, and the outcome of the story is stunning and memorable. He provides a very satisfying explanation of who a murdered unknown person really is and how his identity affects the thugs who killed him. The life of the only scout to survive Custer's last stand is told so grippingly that I could not stop from finishing it.

Forsyth simply has the wonderful knack for writing fiction so it seems real, personal, and meaningful. His writing carries you into a world of possibilities and will stretch your own thinking and enrich your understanding of life's possibilities.

(...) The Veteran is a compilation of five novellas: 78-, 70-, 34-, 36-, and 140-pages in length, to be exact. They have several things in common -- gripping story telling, enough flesh and detail to get involved and hooked in, and a strong twist at the end to surprise and delight. Whether it's vigilante justice, the scammee scamming the scammer, or a delightfully evocative tale about native America, Forsyth may be at his very best as he spins these five yarns spanning gullible tourists to drug smuggling. As a voracious reader, it's rare anymore I turn the pages with such delight and entertainment. This one goes on my top shelf, the one with little company ! Get it -- read it -- enjoy!

Frederick Forsyth never disappoints. This is a collestion of 5 short stories where characters are developed quickly, and you keep reading to find the tales' final twist.

The Veteran deals with the justice beyond a court of law and the honor of former comrades. It is worth the price of the entire book.

The Art of the Matter covers greed, swindlers and pay back in a very satisfying manner. In fact all of the stories deal with payback in some form.

The Miracle is a great story that justs sucks you into its magic just before the door comes crashing down.

The Citizen tells you exactly what is going to happen, but you don't see the truth until the final couple of lines.

However, Whispering Wind is the finest story. It is part ghost story and part morality tale.

Highly recommended.

Douglas De Bono
Author of ROGUE STATE

I loved Forsyth's earlier collection "No Comebacks" and was looking forward to the five stories here. While each is well written, they vary wildly in plotting and overall quality. Throughout, Forsyth takes the reader inside particular settings which are almost as interesting as the stories. The first two are top-notch stuff, great, nasty 70-80 page fables that would translate very well onto the large screen. The middle two stories are shorter shaggy-dog pieces (about 35 pages each) whose twists are far too obvious. The last piece is a somewhat polarizing 140 page novella set in Montana that readers will probably either love or find tiresome (as I did).

The book kicks off with an Indian shopkeeper in London witnessing the mugging of an elderly man (who later dies) by two street thugs. The story is followed through the police inspector assigned to the case, who must locate the two killers and find out who the old man was. Once this is accomplished, the case proceeds to the courts, where it looks to be an open and shut case with the eyewitness, fingerprints, everything. However, when a high-powered barrister takes the case of the two thugs pro bono, it becomes a lot more uncertain whether or not justice will prevail. I won't give away the resolution, but it's excellent.

The second story is just as strong, and takes place in the rarified world of London auction houses. Here we meet a struggling middle-aged bit player in films, an odious piece of the upper crust, and a self-made young man from the hinterlands, whose intersection results in a classic con caper with a lot of humor. The inside look at auction houses is fascinating, and the supporting cast of appraisers, computer hackers, forgers, and others completes the rich setting. Those who enjoy tales of scams, cons, and greedy people getting their just desserts will love this.

"The Miracle" is mostly a lengthy monologue delivered by a man in Siena to a pair of American tourists who happen by his courtyard on festival night. He weaves them a tale about World War II and the Allied drive up Italy that pushed the Germans out of Sienna, and the miracle that occurred in that very courtyard. As with all the stories, there's a twist, but just not a very surprising one. "The Citizen" attempts to build suspense from a trio of passengers on board a flight from Bangkok to England and the question of which of them might be smuggling drugs. The red herrings are all too obvious and the story kind of fizzles out.

The final piece, "Whispering Wind", starts off as a fairly standard slice of historical fiction about the lone white survivor of Custer's army at the Battle of Little Big Horn. This time the twist is in the middle however, and the reader suddenly finds himself in a Rip Van Winklesque time-travel story. The conceit is that a century later, the characters from the first half of the story must play out unfinished business. Forsyth has obviously researched the old West and is having fun with the sci-fi elements of the story, but it is utterly lacking in the fine characterization that made the first two stories in the book so fun to read. Instead, the protagonist, his love interest, his foes, and basically all the characters, are archetypes, and thus it's hard to get too involved with them.

So, while all are enjoyable on a certain level for the atmospheric detail Forsyth brings to them, only the first two are really worth reading. Those with a strong interest in Siena may enjoy "The Miracle" and those with a strong interest the old West may find "Whispering Wind" diverting, but most will be better served skipping those.

This collection of five stories are fascinating, but not as intriguing some of the other Forsyth novels I've read. The first story, "The Veteran" starts out with a mugging of an old man who is "special" or was once regarded as "special". The "special" aspect of him explains the outcome of the mugging as well as the final act of "justice". "The Art of Matter" was a step down for me compared to "The Veteran". I'm just not interested in Art and auctions. For those into trickery and art, I suppose it would be quite an engaging read. "The Miracle" was my next favorite story about a mysterious woman. The ending will take you by surprise and may even make you laugh. To get the full effect of the story, one must be careful and focus on the details of the dialogue. "The Citizen" was another great story involving a drug smuggling operation. By far, the best story of the book was "Whispering Wind" which is largely a romantic adventure. Anyone familiar with Custer's last stand at the battle of Little Big Horn or simply those interested in the old west will enjoy it tremendously. It's the type of story that many women would like because of the romantic element.

... I think this is a good book, with entertaining stories, however my personal prejudices make me give it a 4 star rather than 5 star rating. This is because I always associate Forsyth with another, earlier era. Day of the Jackal is so wonderful because, although timelessly entertaining, it is unmistakably of another era with earlier technologies and earlier political situations. Reading Forsyth talk about "emails," "punker hair" and "piercings" and other 21st Century stuff in The Veteran (and in Icon) kind of jarred with me. Sort of like when you think Herman Wouk (The Caine Mutiny) must be dead, it's totally jarring to hear Forsyth talk about current events when you're so used to thinking of him in the context of a long ago era. Forsyth is just in his sixties, but it was still weird.

Anyway, on to the stories -- I didn't really go for the title story (The Veteran). My favorite in this collection is Art of the Matter because one of the main characters was female (like me) and it's nice to see a female heroine in a Forsyth book and also because it has such an entertaining premise. Art auction fraud isn't a new idea (just watch Antique Road Show to see the shady dealings!) but Forsyth makes it entertaining.

The Whispering Wind story just went on interminably for me and it just got too crazy for me to enjoy. It had a good message, but I kept thinking that the "reincarnation" of Craig's Native American sweetheart behaved in an unnatural way to his advances -- she was sort of drawn to him rather than completely creeped out, which is how almost any girl might react. I guess Forsyth's message was that she instinctively knew that she knew him or something. The rest of the story had a good message too, but by the end I started to forget that the battle at Little Big Horn had anything to do with the story.

The Siena story was pretty interesting but ended in a very cheap fashion in my opinion. I finished it and kind of thought "okay, whatever -- NEXT."

The airplane drug story was entertaining, but I didn't get into it even though I like reading Forsyth's work.

It's worth the price, but I think No Comebacks was a much better collection -- not only because the stories don't seem to go on forever, but also because there are more of them and they are interesting to read repeatedly, where as after reading the exhaustive Whispering Wind story I think it will be a long time before I pick this book up again.

"The Veteran," by Frederick Forsyth, is one of five stories in a new collection written by one of the greatest suspense writers of all time. This collection is so engrossing that I read all 367 pages in one day.

"The Veteran" is a powerful tale of murder and revenge. It deals with an elderly man who is kicked to death by two thugs during a mugging in urban London. The author describes the legal process during which the thugs are picked up and prosecuted. Shockingly, one of the finest barristers in England decides to defend the muggers. Why is the honorable James Vansittart QC, a brilliant and successful barrister, defending these disreputable criminals? Forsyth brings the case to life with his superb description of London's criminal justice system. I could not put the book down until I read the dramatic and moving conclusion.

The other stories deal with such diverse themes as art scams, drug smuggling aboard an airplane, and a miracle in Siena, Italy. These three stories feature vivid characterizations, crisp and realistic dialogue, subtle humor, intricate plotting, and nail-biting suspense.

The novella in the collection is called "Whispering Wind," and it is the story of a scout named Ben Craig who survived Custer's Last Stand in 1876. Forsyth brilliantly describes the battles between the white men and the Native Americans whom they victimized without mercy. We get a picture of Custer as a clueless, arrogant, and reckless dandy who had no idea what he was up against at Little Bighorn until it was too late. Ben Craig is a sympathetic character. He is a loner who is completely at home in the frontier and he is a young man of compassion and sensitivity. Craig falls in love with and rescues a young Cheyenne girl who is about to be raped and killed by Custer's soldiers. The relationship between Craig and the Cheyenne girl takes a supernatural turn which gives the story an added dimension.

It is wonderful to see that the art of storytelling is alive and well in this marvelous collection.

The Veteran is just as fine, and in many ways better than No Comebacks, even though I know that it can never equal the original feeling I had when I first discovered No Comebacks.

The title story concerns the investigation of a mugging. We are introduced to police constables, lawyers, and the whole judicial process unfolds before our eyes as we witness the necessary evils that are used in bringing someone to justice. Forsyth pulls a twist on us, as usual, and though it's not as effective as some of his other work, it's still quite worth the ride.

Also in this collection is "The Miracle," a shorter twisting tale of a couple who are stopped on their way by a man with some very interesting information.

Both of these stories alone were worth the relatively minimal price of the book, given that I will no doubt be rereading The Veteran many times to come.

I bought this book a few days ago.TO my suprise ,this is the first time that Frederick Forsyth wrote the short storys.
The publisher called them the suspense fiction of Frederick Forsyth .Each story has a different theme,of course the different storyline.They're all independent.Not like the orignal
novel he had written,they are all about small guys.Some can predict the ending before you finish them, some have the O.Henry's ending that will make you astonished,but don't feel good as <The Devil's Alternative> which has the best O.Henry's ending that I've ever seen.

A series of short stories, each is well written, exciting and with a twist. Since none is too long they can be read in a short time while travelling.