I enjoyed this a lot more than I thought as I have listened to some of the other, "Dillon," stories, but to this point found none as good. I now have a clearer understanding of this character who originated in '92. Michael Page is superb as narrator. This story is not for the faint of heart. 10 of 10 starsfavorites14 s Paul AlkazrajiAuthor 5 books217

Though ‘Eye of The Storm’ is premised on a real event (the 1991 mortar attack on 10 Downing Street), and an interesting exercise in filling out fictionally what might have been the story behind it, this book felt a workman- product. Well-enough plotted and with some good characterisation, the writing was, however, in places flat and uninspired. From ‘a thriller writer in a class of his own’ it says on the cover, but one might expect to find a teacher’s comment in the margins ‘could do better... see me after class’.7 s JimAuthor 7 books2,050

This was fun, but not great. Things moved a little too quickly & easily most of the time. I was also disappointed because I expected a different main character. That's on me, though. Well narrated.1audio 2fiction 3series ...more7 s Mal WarwickAuthor 31 books443

In Eye of the Storm, British thriller writer Jack Higgins reimagines the story behind the mortar attack on 10 Downing Street that took place in 1991 shortly after John Major succeeded Margaret Thatcher as Prime Minister. The attack took place during the early days of the First Gulf War, when Baghdad was under attack from the air and a land invasion was imminently expected. The Provisional IRA engineered the attack, which mirrored its tactics in Northern Ireland. Instead, Higgins puts the blame on a former Provisional IRA hit man named Sean Dillon working as a mercenary for the KGB and its client, Saddam Hussein.

Saddam Hussein gets the blame

Eye of the Storm reflects the historical record in many respects, including the details of the attack. The fanciful hinge on which the story turns is the role of Saddam Hussein, who appears as a minor character in the novel. The hardened mercenary Sean Dillon takes the honors at the center of the plot. Two other favorite characters from HigginsÂ’ stable round out the cast: Martin Brosnan and even the now aging Liam Devlin, both of them reformed ex-IRA terrorists now reincarnated as university professors. The three-way relationship among Dillon, Brosnan, and Devlin is at the heart of the story. All three, and even the many lesser characters in the novel, are brilliantly drawn; their personalities leap off the page. Higgins tells the tale with supreme command of pacing and momentum, building suspense steadily to a crescendo. He makes terrorism credible.

About the author

British novelist Harry Patterson has written most of his 84 novels under the pseudonym Jack Higgins. Though he began writing in 1959, his breakthrough came only in 1975, with the publication of The Eagle Has Landed, which sold fifty million copies. The book introduced the Irish terrorist Liam Devlin and was followed years later by three additional novels about him. Clearly, Higgins was enamored of Irish terrorists. Following his first appearance in 1979 in The Judas Gate, the younger IRA gunman Sean Dillon was the central character in twenty-one subsequent novels. Eye of the Storm, published in 1992, was the first of those.mysteries-thrillers5 s Erth3,850

now i am hooked. This was such a great, easy and creative book. i was hooked after the first page.

The characters were easy to fall in love with and follow, along with the story. the author made the mental visions so easy and vivid of the surroundings and the characters actions felt so real.

i would highly recommend this author and this book.5 s Cindy B. 3,829 211

Terrifically exciting (usual for this author). No cliffhanger, clean, and entertaining. Very well narrated. 3 s Marty Fried1,067 107

I read this book, and others by this author, long ago, and only remember that i enjoyed them enough to read several, but mainly as I came across them in used book stores, never really seeking them out. But this was way back before Goodreads, and before ebooks.read-long-ago2 s Travis Bird135 3

Having read The Eagle Has landed, and having my expectations high, I was amazed to discover that old Jack only had one book in him! This and several others among his efforts show a recycling of the same character types, story lines: I can't figure why he hasn't been denounced loudly for it. I read a few and came to believe I could write a Jack Higgins novel myself using his templates. Un Jack, I won't be so cruel. Don't bother reading anything he wrote apart from "Eagle". utter-garbage-action3 s Pierre Tassé501 48

A rough start to be expected as the first book, but I found the whole prmise Jackel- and not imaginative. It picked up speed near the 75% reading mark but remained bland. I have reservations in going to book #2 in the series. If no other books come in and there is a void in my reading material, I may attempt but as of now, so many interesting authors out there.3 s Greg1 review

Won't read the rest in this series

Just bad. Dillon is supposed to be an elite criminal. Yet, he makes mistake after mistake. Tells everyone his plans. Fails twice.

Won't waste my time continuing this series.3 s Jane Long770 2

Not bad. Took me a while to get into it, but once I did, I enjoyed it. Think it's the first one I,ve read by him. Onto the next one now, Thunder Point.3 s Hannah663 1 follower

Wow, this was one that I didn't . There are some that I do and some that I don't. Sean Dillon is a mercenary for hire. He's hired by an Iraqi who wants to make a demonstration. Sean decides to take out the British War Council. Apparently, this is based on a true event.

It was just so...boring. It was all people talking to each other and making plans. Very little action and yet...so many people died. I didn't really care. I would have rather the mission had been more successful just so that it would have been more interesting.2 s Mishawn191

Very entertaining spy thriller. Action packed but also slow in some spots.2 s2 comments Civilisation ? Freedom of Speech961 262

2.5/5 Jack Higgins was the first author of thrillers that I read. The Eagle Has Landed remains a must-read WW2 thriller. It was a book that has been copied by other authors and by Higgins himself repeatedly !
Although he repeated the same basic storyline - someone had to be rescued/assassinated in his novels, they were fun reads because of the fast pacing, the protagonists (Liam Devlin and later Sean Dillon) and the style. This one was read more for the sake of nostalgia but clearly the style is out-of-date. 2 s Oli Turner325 4

The fiftieth #jackhiggins #martinfallon #hughmarlowe #harrypatterson #henrypatterson #jamesgraham novel #eyeofthestorm published in 1992. The first appearance of #seandillon who would go on to feature in the vast majority of HigginsÂ’ subsequent novels. Dillon is a great character charming and deadly. I read most of the sean Dillon novels when I was younger and gave up as they started to get repetitive. It might be the bias of nostalgia but this first entry in the series is Higgins in top form. Brigadier Charles Ferguson makes another appearance as does Martin Brosnan whom we havenÂ’t seen since Higgins 42nd book touch the devil. Brosnan is back to hunt another killer as before. But this time the killer is so compelling he takes over Higgins work for this next stage in Higgins writing career. Higgins had slowly been developing what would become the Dillon character over many years, taking different qualities of previous characters and mixing them together to get his most popular/recurring protagonist. Liam devlin also makes an appearance. ItÂ’s interesting that Higgins shows how ruthless Dillon can be, but also how mistakes can be made. Despite failure Dillon is still formidable. It would have been good to see him succeed in at least one mission (perhaps something without such major stakes) so the reader can appreciate how capable Dillon is before having him coerced into working for the government in the next book. However, the fact that Dillon is always a half step ahead is probably enough to prove his skills, especially as the failures are always caused by external factors not Dillon. Always fun having real history examined through fiction.
Great stuff.
1 Matt889

Not any fun. This was an audiobook. You know, a good narrator can make a mediocre book worth listening too. The opposite of this is true also. A poor narrator can make a good story a chore to listen to. This book falls into that category. The narrator reminds me of an over the top Shakespearian actor... sort of William Shantner with a thick British accent. Every. Thing. Was. Said. With. Emphasis! He tried to make every different person's voice- well- different. With miserable results. He'd use a loud voice then answer it with a barely audible whisper. Throw in an attempt at a French accent and it spelled disaster. In a word he was ANNOYING.

Another beef I had was the author's choice of character names. I feel he violated a very basic rule: don't give characters names that start with the same initial. He had two F's (Fergusson and Flood), three D's (Dylan, Devlin, Danny) and amazingly FIVE M's (Moira, Mary, McGuire, McKeeve, and Mordecai). It was really hard to keep all of them straight. In fact the story had too many named characters.

In short this was not an enjoyable story to listen to- and that doesn't even consider the plot which was all over the place and hard to follow. I finished it- but it was a chore... thus it "earned" two stars. 1 R.P. MorelAuthor 10 books47

How the character Sean Dillon came to be.everything_else1 Steve919 9

June 2018 Sean #1 but my 5th Jack Higgins. I think I appreciate Sean more as a person part of the Ferguson team than as an ruthless independent contract.1 Keith Wofsey11

Had to put this one down. 30% into this book and nothing much is happening.
When I picked it back up it was a slow read up until 50% into the book.
The last 50% moved much better. Martin HillAuthor 31 books81

Sean Dillon is a bad man. A very bad man. A former IRA gunman, Dillon now hires himself out as an assassin to any terrorist group or intelligence agency with enough money to meet his price. In this Jack Higgins' thriller, Eye of the Storm, the man meeting Dillon's price is Saddam Hussein, Iraq's embattled dictator besieged by an international Coalition of countries during 1991's Operation Desert Storm.

Hussein wants to lash out beyond his country's borders to show the Coalition he can strike at will in any of their countries. Dillon's way of fulfilling that wish is to attack the British war cabinet during their daily morning briefing in No. 10 Downing Street. (Higgins admits the plot was inspired by the real life IRA mortar attack on Downing Street during the war.)

British intelligence, however, is on to Dillon. The problem is Dillon is a ghost. No current photo of him exists and no one knows what he actually looks . Moreover, he is a trained actor and a master of disguise. Brigadier General Charles Ferguson, had of Section 4 in MI6, convinces another former IRA gunman – Martin Brosnan, a one time colleague of Dillon's – to join the hunt for the killer.

Higgins grew up amid the Irish Troubles and he is at his best writing thrillers about former IRA members. His character Liam Devlin, first seen in Higgins' classic The Eagle Has Landed, is one of literature's more memorable rogues. But Dillon is a killer of another color.

Where Devlin and Brosnan – both of whom appear together in previous Higgins thrillers – are disillusioned IRA men who left the movement when it turned into wholesale murder, Dillon is a remorseless killer. And that puts me into a conundrum.

After this book, Dillon goes on to become the center character of another Higgins series. But un Devlin and Brosnan, I don't Dillon. He has none of the glib Irish humor of Devlin, nor any of the introspective intellectualism of Brosnan. I simply don't want to spend more time with him. Though because I enjoy Higgins' books, I probably will. I only hope in subsequent novels, Dillon grows a conscience.
1 Danny M100 5

Jack Higgins The story is very interesting. The story is written in typical Jack Higgins format. It is a novel about an IRA hit man Sean Dillion who goes public for hire. The story is very fast paced and easy to read. The book is one in a series featuring the villain Sean Dillion who becomes a very able character. The name of the books in the Sean Dillion series are listed below. It seems all the Jack Higgins novels follow a similar story line, and if you enjoy his writing style you will enjoy his novels. I would not put this novel in the same category as The Eagle has Landed, but that being said it is a very interesting novel well worth reading.

Eye of the Storm (1992) a.k.a. Midnight Man
Thunder Point (1993)
On Dangerous Ground (1994)
Angel of Death (1995)
Drink with the Devil (1996)
The President's Daughter (1997)
The White House Connection (1998)
Day of Reckoning (2000)
Edge of Danger (2001)
Midnight Runner (2002)
Bad Company (2003)
Dark Justice (2004)
Without Mercy (2005)
The Killing Ground (Feb 2008)
Rough Justice (Aug 2008)
A Darker Place (Jan 2009)
The Wolf at the Door (January 2010)
The Judas Gate (2010)
A Devil is Waiting (2012)
The Death Trade (2014)of three. 1 Stewart109 1 follower

A disappointing thriller. The plot is not believable. There is really no climax (as the author tells you on page one how its going to turn out). The characters are mostly pretty thin and the writing formulaic.

Give this one a pass.
1 ?? Sarah ?? (former Nefarious Breeder of Murderous Crustaceans)2,413 7,676

An entertaining read.bookcrossing mysteries-thrillers-suspense1 Aseem Achintya5 4

masterpiece. first Dillon book i read. i dont have a copy though. theres little i wouldnt do to get a library edition or even a hardback of this or its renamed version: Midnight Man.1 CarmenAuthor 4 books86

Though not as thrilling as Eagle Has Landed, this novel is still captivating enough to keep you glued to the pages.1 Gayle Noble1,731 32

Very much your average spy thriller, I didn't find it particularly enthralling. Hoping the series improves as it goes along. action_adventure_spy crime-fiction-police-fbi-cia military-war_fiction_nonfiction ...more1 Michael Martz943 28

For an assassin supposedly the equal of the great "Carlos", Jack Higgins' Northern Irishman Sean Dillon certainly seems ineffective. Handy with a handgun and a master of disguises definitely, but if the two attempts described in "Eye of the Storm" are any indication, he's in for a short career. Of course, Higgins wrote over 20 more in the Dillon series after this, but still....

Eye of the Storm begins with a botched attempt by Dillon on the life of ex-PM Margaret Thatcher and ends with a botched attempt on the lives of the British war cabinet, including PM John Major (based on real events). In between, killer Dillon is hand-picked by an Iraqi businessman (the action occurs during the Gulf War) to make some sort of noisy hit on the Brits and Dillon dreams up an audacious attack that would show the world Saddam Hussein cannot be pushed around. Of course, Dillon didn't care about that, he just loved the challenge and the $2M coming his way. Unfortunately, the level of detail required to pull an attack on the heavily fortified 10 Downing Street off doesn't seem to be his forte, so it comes to naught in the end.

I've read several Higgins books over the years and generally enjoy them, as I did this one, but they're showing their age a bit. The writing in Eye of the Storm is OK but seems dated, the dialogue is corny at times, and although the action moves quickly it seems the mistakes on both the intelligence side and Dillon's are almost comical. I know I'm jaded by all the technology that can be thrown at terrorists in today's world so I have to control my expectations when I read an older novel this, but even back in those days I'd find it hard to believe the attack written about here would've gotten as far as it did. However, it apparently did, in the real world, though I don't remember it and should do a little research.

Eye of the Storm is entertaining but has a lot of holes. 3.5 stars rounded down. 1 Alice25 35

I used to be a fan of Jack Higgins, especially his WW2 thrillers & his Sean Dillon books. I've read Eye of the Storm (Book One in the Sean Dillon series) at least twice all the way through, and have gone back and skipped around re-reading my favorite parts several times. Eye of the Storm focuses on the real life mortar attack on 10 Downing Street on Feb, 7, 1991, mixing facts & real people with the fictional characters & what might have happened leading up to the attack.

I do some of the characters, killer for hire/master of disguise Sean Dillon, Liam Devlin (another shady fellow who first appeared in The Eagle Has Landed), as well as not-so-ex-gangsters Harry Flood and some of his henchmen. They were all rather charming, despite their various misdeeds (to put it mildly). Also able was Brigadier Ferguson, who works for the British Govt. However, I didn't Mary Tanner, Martin Brosnan, or his sorta ex-girlfriend Anne Marie. They were just too perfect, and Martin B was very brooding/morose. I've come across Brosnan in other Higgins's books, and he's just as miserable. ARGH, lighten up! There were also some minor characters who were downright irritating, and I sometimes wondered if they were really necessary to the story.

The plot is entertaining, even though it drags in places, especially when Sean Dillon & Harry Flood aren't there. There's tons of characters in addition to the ones I've mentioned, so it can be hard to keep track the first time reading it.

Still, I do enjoy pulling this book off my shelf every now & then.


SPOILER ALERT BELOW

If you Sean Dillon, Higgins turned him from villain to anti-hero for the rest of the ongoing series, starting with Book 2, Thunder Point).
END SPOILER ALERTfavorite favorites read-it ...more Serdar Poirot158 1 follower

Büyük bir tiyatro oyuncusu olacakken yak?nlar?n? kaybetti?i için IRA'ya kat?lan Sean Dillon bir süre sonra herkese çal??maya ba?lar. Körfez sava?? ba?lam??t?r ve Irak zor durumdad?r. Saddam'?j yönlendirmesi ile multi milyoner Michael Aroun, KGB ajan? Josef Makaev vas?tas?yla Dillon'a ula??r. Thatcher'e Fransa'da pusu kuran Dillon, adamlar? ihbar etti?i için ba?ar?l? olamaz. Bu yüzden ?ngiltere'ye geçip John Mayor yani ba?bakan? halledecektir. Ancak Frans?z ?stihbarat? ve ?ngilizlerin G4 dedi?i birimin ba??ndaki Charles Ferguson pe?indedir. Eski bir IRA eleman? olan ve Dillon'a çat??an Martin Brosnan da i?e dahil olur. Dillon onu devreden ç?karmak ister ama arada sevgilisi olan Anna Marie ölür. Brosnan art?k Dillon'a yakalamaya yemin etmi?tir. IRA efsanesi olan Liam Devlin ile görü?ür. Sean da ?ngiltere'ye gelmi? ve daha önce kendisine silah ve patlay?c? temin eden Jack Harvey ile görü?mü?tür. Martin de Jack'in dü?man? olan Harry Flood ile görü?ür. Vakit daralm??t?r. Makaev'in adam? olan Tania, G4 içinde bir evrak? olan Gordon'dan bilgileri al?r. Ama Gordon yakalan?nca ikisi de intihar eder aç?k vermemek için. Uzaktan akrabas? olan bir patlay?c? uzman? ve ye?eni Angel ile çal??an Dillon bir arabaya 50 kilo semtex koyar ve Downing soka??nda bunu patlat?r. Ama kabinde kimseye ciddi bir zarar gelmez. Michael Aroun buna çok k?zar. Uçak uöurup Fransa'ya giden Dillon, Aroun onu öldürmeye kalk?nca hepsini öldürür. Ama Brosnan, Ferguson'un yard?mc?lar?ndan Mary Tanner ve Harry de olay yerine gelir. Sean vurulur. Onlar gittikten sonra Frans?z istihbarat?ndan Max Hernu da gelir. Ama Sean'?n cesedi ortada yoktur. Çelik yelek i?e yaram?? m?d?r? Ferguson bu habere ne tepki verecektir? Brosnan bunu ne zaman ö?renecektir? Keyifle soluksuz okunan bir roman. This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.Show full review Geoff Wooldridge778 1 follower

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