Sheepdogs
A Novel
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- ¥2,000
発行者による作品情報
“You know Slow Horses—now meet the Sheepdogs.” —The Sunday Times (London)
Two Misfits. One Mission. Zero Back-Up. • When a high-stakes heist goes wrong, an ex-CIA operative and a special operations pilot find themselves in the middle of a game of espionage and survival as they navigate a treacherous web of deception and shifting loyalties in a globe-spanning, action-packed thriller from the New York Times bestselling author of 2034.
"Move Sheepdogs to the top of your list!”—Jack Carr, #1 New York Times bestselling author
“A thriller and comedy in one, it’s a wild ride.”—Harlan Coben, #1 New York Times bestselling author
Skwerl and Cheese are down on their luck. Skwerl, who is resourceful like a squirrel (Marines win battles, not spelling bees), used to work for Ground Branch, the CIA’s elite paramilitary wing. He was fired after a raid went bad in Afghanistan. Big Cheese Aziz, a legendary pilot—his country’s Maverick—is equally hard up. The fall of Kabul has left him grounded, working the nightshift at a gas station.
Skwerl recruits Cheese into an anonymous network of so-called sheepdogs, a band of Robin Hoods who operate in the shadowy space between the sheep and the wolves, protecting prey from predator and earning a buck along the way.
Their mission: repossess a private jet stranded on a remote African airfield. Their fee: a commission on the jet’s $5 million value. But nothing about this job is adding up. Their contact has gone missing. Their handler is as mysterious as the real source of the money. And when the women in their lives get involved—one pregnant wife and one dominatrix—the stakes skyrocket.
Globe-trotting and page-turning, full of heart and humor, Sheepdogs is an adventure through the under-belly of modern war and intelligence
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
International intrigue, classic heist tropes, and gonzo humor collide in this bruising page-turner from Ackerman (2054). Jay Manning, better known as "Skwerl," was a member of an elite CIA unit before one of his missions went FUBAR and he was fired. His old friend Aziz "Big Cheese" Iqbal is an Afghan pilot renowned for his ability to fly any kind of plane. Adrift without a war to fight, the two take to operating as mercenaries-for-hire. As the novel opens, Skwerl has persuaded Cheese to travel to Africa and "repossess" a luxury jet on behalf of an anonymous client. Things go south fast when they walk into an ambush, barely escaping in Cheese's plane to a hangar in rural Pennsylvania. They regroup and—with the help of a memorable supporting cast including Skwerl's dominatrix wife Sinead, an excommunicated Amish mechanic named Ephraim, and a former soldier nicknamed "Just Shane" who's gone off the grid in Colorado—try to determine who might have set them up. When Cheese's pregnant wife is kidnapped, things get more urgent. Ackerman, a former Marine, holds a funhouse mirror up to classic grizzled-soldier narratives while grounding the loopy proceedings with real stakes for his characters. The result is a riotous entertainment.
