Sheepdogs

Two down-on-their-luck ex-CIA operatives get caught in a shadowy network working jobs for an unknown dispatcher - Sheepdog - in this rollicking thriller by New York Times-bestselling author Elliot Ackerman.

SAM'S REVIEW

Elliot Ackerman is by any metric a chronic overachiever. As the author of five novels and two memoirs, he has been nominated for the National Book Award and the Andrew Carnegie Medal for both fiction and non-fiction. As a former Marine Raider and CIA Special Activities Officer, he's been awarded the Silver Star, the Bronze Star with Valour and a Purple Heart, after five deployments in Afghanistan and Iraq. 

Skwerl, the protagonist in Ackerman's latest novel, Sheepdogs, may share his military know-how but falls somewhat short of the author’s achievements. Instead of military medals, he finds himself blamed and disgraced blamed for a botched mission. Instead of being a celebrated writer, and due to the heavy boot of the US government, he finds himself unable to get a normal job. This leaves him scratching around for work from a shadowy network of other ex-CIA operatives, former soldiers, mercenaries and repatriated fighters, led by the mysterious Sheepdog.

When Sheepdog offers Skwerl a million dollars to 'repossess' a plane from an airstrip in Uganda and deliver it to Marseille, Skwerl sees a way out of his predicament. He just needs a pilot, one as desperate as himself. And so he turns to his former comrade Cheese, real name Aziz Iqbal, formerly the best pilot in the Afghani air force: a man who flew dangerous missions for the Americans but now works late night shifts in a petrol station while worrying about his pregnant wife Fareeda. Cheese agrees to join the mission: the book opens with the him and Skwerl in a swamp, waiting for a man they've not met to tell them over radio that it's safe to break into an airfield. 

Unsurprisingly, the swamp is as good as things get for Skwerl and Cheese for some time. Chased around the world by a man seeking revenge for his brother's death, and by a character called Uncle Tony, whose job was "to run America's off-the-books armies,” they get a lesson in duplicity, loyalty, betrayal, bravery, foolhardiness and failure. And that's before a money-making scheme involving some very expensive crockery and a trip to the Ukrainian frontline leaves them needing help from an Amish reject and a dominatrix.
Amongst all his, Ackerman slides in commentary on how the US government "always wound up screwing over" indigenous fighters "from Laos and Cambodia to Afghanistan and Iraq and Syria, from the Montagnards and Contras to the Kurdish Peshmerga and Ukrainian International Legion.” He also uses his personal experience to write about the realities of war: soldiers, feeling betrayed by the elites they were fighting for, looting homes and leaving them "picked to the bones like a meal eaten many times over.” Ackerman deftly avoids lecturing the reader by creating frenetic action and intriguing backstories. 

Sheepdogs is simply great fun. It's full of twists, turns and reversals. It's got the action to flex Jack Reacher's biceps, the cloak-and-dagger plotting to keep David McCloskey fans guessing, and a cast of eccentric characters to rival Mick Heron's Slow Horses (although none quite as appallingly brilliant as Jackson Lamb). It may not have the heft to last in the mind for a long time, but it certainly offers readers a good time. 

PUBLISHER REVIEW

'Skwerl, Cheese, Dickhead Mike, the White Russian-these characters are totally addictive. I couldn't put Sheepdogs down. A thriller and comedy in one, it's a wild ride' HARLAN COBEN

A sly, funny, action-packed thriller introducing an instantly iconic spy duo, from the author of New York Times bestseller 2034

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 the CIA's elite paramilitary wing. He was unceremoniously fired after a raid went bad in Afghanistan. 'Big Cheese' Aziz, a legendary pilot - his nation's Maverick - is equally hard up. So Skwerl recruits Cheese into an anonymous network of so-called sheepdogs, who operate in the shadowy moral grey zone between predator and prey.

Their first mission? To repossess a private jet stranded on a remote Ugandan airfield. Their fee- a commission on the jet's $5 million value. But nothing about the job seems to add up. Their contact goes 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 overnight.

From the jungles of Kampala to a glamorous hotel in Marseille, from a veteran-run pizzeria in Kyiv to a Panera in northern Virginia, Skwerl and Cheese must navigate an increasingly tangled set of loyalties where no one and nothing is what it seems. Globe-trotting and page-turning, full of heart and humour, Sheepdogs is a wild ride through the underbelly of modern war and intelligence.