Don’t Play Dead With Vultures by Jack Leavers
Summer 2008 sees former Royal Marine John Pierce lured from running convoys in Iraq to a lucrative contract in the steamy jungles of French West Africa. He soon discovers this new theatre is even more dangerous than the war zone he left behind. Corrupt officials, drug cartels, and competing military factions rub shoulder-to-shoulder in a melting pot of greed and intrigue... And a sadistic foe lurks in the shadows.
When old intelligence contacts take an interest, the situation gets complicated fast. Dark forces emerge and events spiral out of control. Pitched into a desperate race against time, can Pierce’s makeshift team of soldiers and civilians fight fire with fire and outwit vicious enemies?
One thing’s for sure, Pierce won’t leave anyone to the mercy of a brutal adversary he knows only too well no matter what it takes.
About the author
Jack Leavers is a former Royal Marine with over thirty-years’ experience spread across the military, private security, corporate investigations, maritime counter-piracy, and risk management. His varied career has included numerous deployments to conflict zones around the world such as Northern Ireland, Bosnia, Iraq, Afghanistan, trouble spots in Africa, and the Somali pirate-infested waters of the Indian Ocean.
He continues to work in challenging environments and has now begun to pen novels inspired by some of the more enterprising projects that got the green light, and other audacious plans that didn’t.
Jack is normally based in London but finds he’s at his most productive writing-wise when deployed overseas. New projects in Iraq and Africa beckon, which should be good news for his third book.
Review
The authenticity radiates off the pages with this book. Jack Leavers uses his background to show us readers the reality behind complex and terrifying situations in conflict zones around the world. I would be shitting myself if I was in either Jack’s or John’s place. It also made me wonder what kind of stuff my dad may have got into - he was in the SAS before he left the army and then went into some security work before then joining the police. I didn’t ask him a lot of questions as quite frankly I didn’t want to know. But now it’s too late to ask him. So in my head John was a combination of my dad and Steve Backshall!!! But it’s due to the authors past experiences that John comes across as a fully formed character that feel as real to the reader as the sky is blue! The reader feels as if they are part of the action, as if it’s a piece of virtual reality and that’s a testament to the great writing.
Now this is a long book to get through but you don’t feel it as I ended up devouring it and pretty much ignoring my family for a full day whilst we are on holiday!!! It draws you in and you are so wrapped up in the narrative that you are desperately wanting to know what happens. The pace is nonstop and you become enthralled.
The whole bunch of characters are fully formed and you just know that all the main players must be based on people the author has met through his travels. I especially loved Manny and of course, John himself. Now I don't normally like it when a book is written in the first person but after the first couple of chapters I got used to it and it started to play out as an audiobook or memoir in my head and it had a strong voice, one that never wavered. The standard of writing allowed this to occur and it is a credit to the author.
This was the first time I had come across this author but I will definitely be looking out for more from him! Great book.
