Title: Knife Edge: When Duty Calls
Author: Harvey Cleggett
Publisher: Sid Harta Books & Print Pty Ltd
ISBN: 978-1-922958-29-7
Pages: 450
Genre: Detective Fiction / Mystery
Reviewed by: Ephantus M.
Pacific Book Review
Author Harvey Cleggett’s fast paced best-seller Knife Edge: When Duty Calls offers an arresting, investigative thrill ride that interweaves suspenseful action sequences with cliff hanger moments, ably capturing the reader’s imagination; this all the while ensuring the pages keep turning.
The author begins with a spine-tingling scenario in which a team of homicide detectives enter a nuclear storage facility where they are met by the heart stopping vision of a dead security guard, shot in the head. Their senses heightened, they draw their weapons, ordering their veteran pilot, Malcom, to prepare his chopper for take-off. The atmosphere is tense as more bodies are discovered, bearing equally brutal headshots, clear proof of the assailant’s methodical intent.
A watchful search tests the team’s skill and perseverance as it becomes obvious all the facility’s personnel have been kidnapped. Conscious of their hazardous surrounds, the trio, Ballard, John, and Peter, discover the imprisonment of terrified workmen, all in clear sight of a ruthless assailant systematically planting multiple packs of C4, intending not only to massacre them, but totally destroy the facility.
The Russian assassin is known to the detectives who are painfully aware of his previous ruthless ‘hits’, and his total lack of empathy towards his victims, mindful that he wouldn’t hesitate to include them in his murderous plan should he become aware of their intrusion. The reader is drawn along at a breakneck pace as unbelievable truths come to light regarding a more concerted attack on the facility. This results in the detectives hunting down powerful Russian antagonists in Moscow where they discover to their horror that as a consequence of their endeavours, their respective loved ones, along with the general public back home are under direct threat.
Harvey Cleggett will have you page turning from the imploring prologue to the heart-stopping conclusion that begs a re-read. The action is high-tech and electrifying, with threatening and highly emotional engagements encountered throughout. This masterpiece is the pure form of expert writing that fully entertains. Knife Edge stands to be nominated as a top-notch fictional work due to its depiction as to how terrorism, greed and lawlessness, when unchecked, can take hold within society.
Overall, Knife Edge: When Duty Calls will ensure you are spellbound throughout, with an ending that knocks it up a star. Its colourful and highly graphic cover ably communicates the solid essence and settings therein, all of which readers will find memorable, realistic and absorbing!
