Seventeen

Seventeen is an assassin. We never learn his real name and it’s something he’s almost forgotten. It certainly isn’t Jones, so I’ll stick to Seventeen, as that will do as well as anything. But he’s not forgotten what he did to climb to the top of a very greasy pole. And he’s certainly not forgotten what it takes to stay there.

His latest job should be simple – just watch an information exchange and then move in afterwards, get what he needs and get out. Only this courier swallows something rather than let it be taken and then it gets messy. Seventeen retrieves a 64g memory card from the man’s stomach. Yep, that gets really messy. And the later that night, a moment of unaccustomed softness nearly costs him his life when a woman tries to kill him. The real problem is that he can’t forget the man’s last desperate words: ‘Parachute. Parachute. Parachute.’ He knows they mean something; he just doesn’t know what.

Handler – a description rather than a name, but that’s all Seventeen refers to him as – claims to have no idea what the man’s last words mean and simply dishes out Seventeen’s next job, one he really doesn’t want to take. He’s told to find and kill Sixteen. His predecessor is the only one in a long line of numbers to leave the game rather than be killed by their successor. Handler tells him that if he doesn’t take the job then his successor will, and Seventeen will become fair game for anyone who wants to take the easy way to the top, to the jobs that pay the big money.

Seventeen agrees, and the hunt is on. Only there are now two hunters in the game.

Seventeen – both the book and the assassin – hooked me from the first page. The first-person narrative pulled me in immediately with its short, sharp, chatty style. Seventeen talks to his audience, he explains everything – or rather everything he wants you to know at that point. There are no info dumps, it’s just as if you’re chatting to a friend in the pub, albeit a very dangerous friend that knows more ways to kill you than you can possibly imagine, and you’re very tempted to ask him to describe a few of them, even though you know that would put you off your food.

The hunt for Sixteen and their subsequent confrontation contains everything a good thriller needs: realistic detail, tense action, surprising twists, and characters that matter. But finding Sixteen isn’t the end of Seventeen’s problems, it’s just the beginning. The short chapters, sometimes only a couple of pages, kept the story moving at a breakneck pace. I was equally drawn to the short backstory digressions containing more about Seventeen’s history and how he got to the top of his profession. It felt like gradually learning more about a new friend – a new, very murderous friend. From these, I eventually concluded Seventeen is on his early 30s, but that’s never made explicit.

Sixteen, or Kondracky, the name he’s now going by, is a formidable opponent. Despite being some 20 years older than Seventeen he’s lost none of his edge. The other characters are equally strong, particular the bored young woman stuck in small town in the middle of nowhere, in a motel with hardly any custom. Her involvement causes more complications than even Seventeen bargained for, but he quickly realises that the only way of saving her life, and his own, might be a very unlikely alliance.

Seventeen – the book, not the person – is a slick, clever, edge-of-the-seat thriller that kept me reading way past the time I should have put the book down to catch up on other things.