State of Grace by Marcus Dalrymple

State of Grace by Marcus Dalrymple
Buy State of Grace by Marcus Dalrymple at Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.com
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Reviewer: Jill Murphy
Summary:
Buy? Yes	Borrow? Yes
Pages: 399	Date: August 2022
Publisher: Black Cat Publications
ISBN:
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Robert Booth has spent his entire adult life in the army. Now, recently retired, and living a quiet life in a Gloucestershire village, an unexpected encounter brings him back to his former existence as a soldier and a mercenary.

The blurb is the basic set up for Marcus Dalrymple's latest novel, State of Grace, but you can expect a lot more than a violent thriller, although you'll get that too, because there is a great deal of depth to Robert Booth's story.

Slowly acclimatising to civilian life, Robert is living quietly in his Gloucestershire village, still a little standoffish and somewhat of an enigma to his neighbours. Even though a lifelong non-believer, he finds himself drawn to the church with a desire to find out more about God and religion. He joins the little parish congregation and is beginning to follow through on his curiosity through conversations with Simon Harding, the vicar, who has an unusual backstory of his own. However, these overtures are interrupted by a visit from Peter Hawkins, Robert's old comrade-in-arms from the SBS, the Royal Navy's special forces unit....

... and Peter has an awful tale. His daughter - and Robert's god-daughter - and her boyfriend have been murdered horrifically in Spain. And because the murderer is the son of a prominent crime family, there has been a cover-up and he has got away scot-free. Peter, invalided out of the army, is unable to extract revenge or retribution and he wants Robert to do it for him.

Robert is initially reluctant. He's pushing sixty, he's not in condition having been out of the game for several years and he is beginning to enjoy civilian life and his tentative forays into religion and ethics. And he has never yet killed for personal retribution or animus - only as a profession. But old loyalties are strong and so is a sense of justice. And so Robert soon finds himself embroiled in one last mission, which will take him on a Spanish journey in more ways than one. He'll need all his skills and all his experience to succeed.

I thoroughly enjoyed State of Grace. It works very well as a satisfying revenge thriller. Robert Booth is a satisfying central character - as a grizzled veteran, he has plenty of skills and they are shown off with great gusto as he works his way through Spain and a huge cast of antagonists. He also has a good sense of humour, which is enjoyable when he is making fools of his arrogant enemies. But the novel is about more than that, as you may guess from the title. Robert remains conflicted about his mission and about the best way he can fulfil his obligation to Peter and punctuated throughout are scenes with Simon the clergyman and conversations about redemption and forgiveness and if a state of grace is ever available to someone like Robert, who has killed many men, sometimes for money.

The pace is good and the more contemplative interludes don't detract from the urgency of the thriller; you'll want to keep turning the pages. There's a large cast of characters, from the stock villains to the CIA operatives and the local police officers, hopelessly compromised. Several women feature and they are well-written, which is often an issue in military thrillers so I was glad to find that not the case here. And - no spoilers! - the ending is unexpected, until it arrives and then you see that it couldn't have been any other way.

Recommended.

If State of Grace sounds up your alley, you might also enjoy Killing Time, also by Dalrymple, and which our reviewer Ani thought was great.

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