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The Terrorist Hunter
Christopher Sarton

The Terrorist Hunter
Christopher Sarton           

UK price:  £12.99

Scotforth Books   ISBN 1-904244-21-6

Order from Scotforth Books at www.scotforthbooks.com 

Oliver Pybus, a National Service Second Lieutenant commanding a platoon, is shipped to Malaya with fellow platoon commanders and the rest of the battalion to fight Communist guerrillas in the jungle. When time allows he uses the experience to further his pre-university studies of the world's major religions, a theme which runs through the book. Not just a compelling piece of fiction, The Terrorist Hunter is also an incisive commentary on the social and cultural difference between nations and shows that the religious beliefs, ethnicity and cultural practices of others should be as revered as our own. A multi-layered and complex novel, The Terrorist Hunter will captivate and intrigue those with a curiosity for culture and religion as well as those interested in how ordinary men working together face up to terrorists.

About the Author

Christopher Sarton was born in 1926 in Quetta, close to the Afghanistan border of India, but grew up in England. He served with the Home Guard when a teenager during the Second World War and joined the Grenadier Guards shortly before D-Day in 1944. After the war he joined an infantry regiment but also served in the Parachute Regiment and with the Military Police. He saw active service fighting Communist guerrillas in Malaya, attached to the Gurkhas, in Suez in 1956 alongside the French Foreign Legion, and against ethnic terrorists in Cyprus and Guyana. His Army career coming to a close, he went on to obtain a degree from the University of Exeter, thereafter teaching in independent secondary schools in the USA, starting in the eastern states with History before adding World Religions and Current World Events after moving to California. During his time in the USA he also learnt yacht sailing off the coast of Maine and qualified to drive juggernauts in Pennsylvania. Now retired, he resides in the highlands of Scotland, enjoying the scenery and investigating clan history.

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By the same author:

Baptism in Siberia        
A Novel                     Find out more
by Christopher Sarton   

UK Price £12.99     $14.95 in US
Format: Paperback
Size: 6 x 9
Pages: 248
ISBN: 0-595-25085-8
Publication Date: Oct-2002

A powerful, thought-provoking journey toward spiritual truth, Sarton's novel is a unique exploration of several major religions of the world.

Baptism in Siberia may be purchased from the following on-line bookstores:

  

Books by Christopher Sarton

Baptism in Siberia, 2002, Writers Club Press, ISBN: 0-595-250858 (pbk)
0-595-650309 (Hardback)

The Terrorist Hunter, 2002, Scotforth Books, ISBN: l-904244-216 (Hardback)

The First Year Teacher, 2004, iUniverse Inc, ISBN: 0-595-312675 (pbk)
0-595-767044 (Hardback)

For readers who like their private journeys with authors to provide a variety of vicarious new experiences, plus unexpected explorations of ideas that seriously need to be examined, these books by Christopher Sarton should not be missed.

Each of his multi-layered novels presents the reader with a wide range of seemingly disparate themes, which in his narratives lock together like the pieces of a completed jigsaw. Their ranges include: lethal violence and religious philosophy; somewhat raunchy sex, and travel in remote regions; yacht sailing, and classroom teaching. The list could go on and on.

To encompass such variety while maintaining continuity of narration, the novels are necessarily fast-paced, and thus are possibly better read in short bursts. But if the reader prefers to curl up for some time with a good book he should be ready, with these novels, for constant and adroit gear changing in his perceptivity. And, whether he is a gear-shifter or a short-burster, he will find that these books will repay re­reading -~ for their pace and variety are likely to leave some things to be discovered in later readings. The re-reading indeed will be no hardship, for the tone of the writing has been described as captivating.

Beyond being written in the first person, these novels seem at first to have nothing in common. The narrators themselves are markedly different: one is anxious and rather diffident (in Hunter), another is bold and assertive (in Teacher) and the other is socially so unacceptable that his name never gets revealed (in Baptism). Moreover, the themes and venues of the narratives differ. One, which also includes yachting, is a travelogue featuring first the USA, then China, Mongolia, and Siberia (Baptism). One is an army story, set in the Malayan jungle (Hunter); the other is a school story in the USA, with a side trip to Guyana (Teacher).

But in fact the books share important characteristics. Like most novels, they recount personal interactions and responses of their characters to events. Nothing especially unusual in any of this, of course. It is the stuff of novels.

However, one characteristic, which these novels share, must surely be unique to them: as a periodically recurring theme they feature well-informed discussions of the world’s major religions. This is done incidentally and colloquially, without advocacy or moralising. No one ever claims final certainty. All are intent on seeking knowledge through researching and reflecting, not by taking instruction. Whichever character momentarily leads the hunt does so only like a questing hound, with the rest intent on taking the lead when they catch the scent. Indeed, no specific leading is done – only a gently guided exploration that is the real theme of these novels. Occasionally a narrator does a lot of thinking, but then he shares it only with the reader.

Throughout all three books this exploration is dovetailed into the context of the activities and events and struggles with which the narratives are mainly concerned. Some readers may wish indeed to skip the religious bits – but doing so would be like eating the icing and marzipan while leaving the rest of the cake.

This presentation of religious concepts has a more logical sequence if the books are read in a particular order: a mainly intellectual and scientific approach characterises Teacher, as the title suggests; Baptism, again as the title suggests, is the most overtly religious of these books (this being offset by a raunchiness that is not present in the others); Hunter provides some element of review, besides featuring additional examination of Buddhism, Islam, and the Christian mystics. However, even for readers interested in the religion angle, it is not crucial for the books to be read in this order. A check on publication dates will show that the author did not write them in the sequence recommended here.

Readers more interested in accompanying the author on a series of vicarious experiences may have concern for the historical chronology. Regarding this, the earliest setting is that of Hunter, the ending of which coincides with the coming of Elizabeth II to the throne. Teacher is set in the time of the Vietnam war and student revolutionism. And Baptism, less reflective than the others of historical background, depicts experiences around the early 1990s.

Wide ranging within the last half century, and also regarding places, experiences, themes, and characters, these novels have a lucid style that makes them seem condensed. But this means only that they will yield more on further reading, as the experiences recounted are multi-faceted. And as for the expositions of religion, these are about a topic that, as the author says, is either foolishness, by turns comforting and inflammatory or else, since it concerns the ineffable and eternal, infinitely more important than anything else. There is just no in-between.