An eye for an eye by Jefrrey Archer

This book is the penultimate one in the William Warwick series, which culminates with End game, the first book i had read and posted about in this space, from the series.

The story begins with a British national, a wealthy and well connected individual at that, who is assigned the task of mediating a defense contract for the British with the Saudi's. The contract has lot of competition in the form of French and Italian delegations. With British and French being the finalists, the responsibility of swaying the result towards Britain lies with that person who reaches out to a shady contact in Riyadh and before he could realize, he is arrested for a murder he didn't commit, but which happened in front of his eyes, as that of the Italian mediator, who gets killed by the son of the Saudi minister. Having been arrested for a crime he didn't commit, he realizes the murky world of politics is not for individuals like him, but for heavy weights who always have higher targets in mind to attain which people like him are considered as expendables. In this setup, enters the duo of William and co on the side of the British national and Faulkner with his motley gang siding with the Saudi's to extract more than his pound of flesh. A cat and mouse chase literally and figuratively goes and and throw in the mix another interesting sub story of a hand written copy of American declaration with sections that were not redacted as against the official version in circulation and how Faulkner almost manages to lay his hands on that copy only to have it snatched from right under his nose by William and his team, forms an interesting sub plot. But the steps taken to achieve this quest results in Ross hogan's arrest. Faulkner finally manages to land a devastating punch, if not physically on William but on his trusted deputy Ross.

Story wise, it is quite racy as compared to many other books in this series. It makes some confusing logical jumps while describing the jail break sequences of the British national and around the auction sequences. Having started reading the series from the last book onwards, i had been more curious with each book as to when and why does Ross gets relegated to whom he appears as in the final novel. Having finished the series, it feels like Faulkner, for all his wealth and criminal mastermind, is not Moriarty and but for the final blow in this book, has always ended up in jail in each of the book. His change of heart in the final book, End game, doesn't feel justified even after reading through whole series and somehow the way he meets his end also feels incomplete or insufficient rather. 

Now that this series is done and dusted, have switched on to "Case of need" by Michael Crichton. Had read this book a long long while ago, but had actually forgotten the story. An interesting read up till now and will keep you posted once its finished.