The Avenger (novel)
The Avenger ( Avenger ) is a novel by Frederick Forsyth that was first published by Bantam Press in 2003. The German first edition was published by C. Bertelsmann in 2003 and later (2005) by Goldmann . The book received positive reviews, even if it didn't quite come close to Forsyth's best-known work, The Jackal .
action
As in other Forsyth novels, the plot initially consists of several storylines, which are later brought together to form a coherent overall picture. The reader is first introduced to the young Calvin Dexter (who later became the main character), the cheerful and naive Ricky Colenso and the industrial tycoon Stephen Edmonds. The action takes place on several time levels.
Calvin Dexter, born in 1950, is the son of a single construction worker who moves from place to place in search of work. He learns about his father's tough life and how to cope in this harsh environment. At the age of 18, Dexter joined the US Army . He signed up for three years because he couldn't afford an education and volunteered to take part in the Vietnam War. Once in Vietnam , he befriends an officer from better backgrounds who is interested in Dexter's literature. Together they form a team of " tunnel rats ", a group of soldiers with one of the most unpleasant tasks of the war: They fight in the pitch-black, trap-riddled darkness of the extensive tunnel system in the Củ Chi area . A task for tough and silent people. With his background, Dexter fits in perfectly. Together with the officer, Dexter leaves Vietnam and the army. To say goodbye after a night of partying, they both have a grinning rat tattooed on their arm with their pants down.
Ricky Colenso comes from a rich family, could actually do whatever he wanted, but would like to help the people in need in Bosnia after the civil war . He went there in 1995, contrary to his mother's requests. In doing so, he comes across the paramilitary group Zoran Zilics, who murder him and the population of an entire village for no reason. When Ricky's regular letters suddenly fail, his mother asks her father Stephen Edmonds for help. He hires a private investigator to find Ricky. Although he tracks down a witness, he is only ready to tell everything in 2001. Edmonds has the remains of his grandson recovered and transferred. However, Ricky does not tell his parents how brutally he was tortured and murdered. Edmonds uses his political ties to bring Ricky's killer to justice, the necessary evidence is now in place. But he has to realize that even the mighty US is not able to find him at all. Edmonds receives a tip from a senior FBI officer that there is a man who is supposed to track down criminals abroad and bring them back to the United States. The man works under the code name "Avenger" and reacts to advertisements in a small magazine.
After the Vietnam War and his army-paid studies, Dexter becomes a lawyer and marries an Italian-American. The two have a daughter who goes on vacation with her boyfriend at the age of sixteen. She never returns and weeks later her body is found. The girl was forced into prostitution and murdered. The police are powerless because the criminals are now in Panama . Dexter travels there on his own and shoots the culprits. Back home, however, he learns that his wife has committed suicide out of grief; then he retires to a small town in New Jersey .
The tragedy does not leave Dexter in peace, he now feels the punishment of the guilty as too low - a life imprisonment would have been more just. From now on, he decides to use the special skills he acquired in Vietnam and the contacts he made as a lawyer to put criminals behind bars. An aircraft magazine serves for contact by a search offer there after a Avenger (dt. Rächer) switches.
Edmonds contacted Dexter in this way and asked him to track down the war criminal Zoran Zilic and bring him back to the United States. Dexter does not yet know that Zilic has a powerful protector in the CIA who wants to use him as a decoy to get at the head of the Islamist organization al-Qaeda , Osama bin Laden . The CIA employee Paul Devereaux has been pursuing a plan for months to neutralize the terrorist, whose dangers Deveraux 'superiors are not yet clear. Dexter must first track down Zilic. He picks up his trail in Ras al-Khaimah and follows her to a fortress-like property including a landing strip on a peninsula in the fictional country of San Martin on the north coast of South America. Dexter's research does not go undetected. Zilic turns on the CIA. Devereaux assigns his deputy Kevin McBride to find out who is after Zilic, and to track down and eliminate this man.
When Dexter developed a plan with the help of aerial photographs and a self-made model, he received an anonymous call that they were prepared to come. Dexter procures several false passports and stages a diversion to hide his entry into San Martin. He is already at Zilic's estate when he is tracked down. But that was intentional. His intrusion into Zilic's premises is also discovered, as he wanted. Zilic panics and hastily leaves the country in his private plane. Dexter has been waiting for this behind a wall panel on the plane, he overpowers and ties up Zilic and his bodyguard and forces the pilots to land in Key West . When the police officers, who were informed by radio, are at the plane, Dexter has already disappeared into the undergrowth.
In the bathroom, McBride is approached about a tattoo, a grinning rat with his pants down. It is September 10, 2001.
Relation to reality
In The Avenger , fiction and reality are closely interwoven. Forsyth has done a lot of research and enriched the book with numerous historical facts.
Forsyth takes up a dilemma of the security authorities and contrasts two positions: The FBI wants to bring a war criminal to justice for his crime against a US citizen; the CIA wants to provide a dangerous terrorist and is ready to accept the supposedly lesser evil. Forsyth illuminates and explains both positions without taking a clear position, even if the sympathies belong to Dexter, and brings the whole thing in connection with September 11th . It remains to be seen whether the story would have turned out differently without Dexter's intervention.
TV adaptation
In 2006, the material was filmed as a TV production with Sam Elliott in the lead role. The adaptation is limited to the core of the story, the subplots have been omitted and the time and locations have been changed. The reference to al-Qaeda and September 11th was dispensed with. The director was Robert Markowitz .
expenditure
- Frederick Forsyth: Avenger . Bantam Press, London 2003, ISBN 0-593-05093-2
- Frederick Forsyth: The Avenger . Translated from the English by Reiner Pfleiderer. Bertelsmann, Munich 2003, ISBN 3-5700-0760-X
Individual evidence
- ↑ http://www.bookreporter.com/reviews/0312997221.asp
- ↑ Archived copy ( memento of the original from May 26, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0473445/
