This is the 3rd book in the 7even Series and just like the other two, Sniper’s Eye and Sniper’s Debt, this too is fast paced and the same cast of characters return for yet another thriller. Actually each of these books showcases the real life of a soldier in the Indian Army. It’s not fun and games, and it’s certainly not like the movies. The hero doesn’t win always.
Sniper’s Quest – Summary
This book starts with Aman Karzai, the dreaded sniper taking out another major Pakistani player in Project Lotus (a drug network). Maj Aaditya Ghosh is now working with Bharat Oil, and his boss is an ex-Naval officer. Zoya and he have been married for two years. Just when things seem to be normal, Maj Aaditya is asked to recover a colleague who has been kidnapped by pirates in the South China Sea.
Maj Aaditya alongwith his office colleague Godbole and several Vietnamese police officials, get to the exchange spot and the Pirates exchange three Indians (including one woman) for money. The Pirate leader calls out Maj Aaditya as a soldier… and when he removes his scarf, Maj Aaditya recognises him from Afghanistan. Someone who had been calling the shots there.
Once Maj Aaditya returns home, his boss brings up the topic of one of the rescued colleagues, Anita Padmanabhan. Apparently she was insisting on speaking to Maj Aaditya. When he calls her, she speaks about how she was held captive by the pirates and met a fellow Indian captive. That person had been tortured but he passed on a sheet of paper with some information on it to Anita, and wanted her to pass it on to someone senior in the Indian Govt. She then speaks about how she was being followed, her house ransacked etc. Maj Aaditya doesn’t believe her story and thinks its PTSD.
A couple of days later Anita is killed in an accident. That’s the point from where the story just picks up pace … Maj Aaditya manages to get hold of the paper that Anita wanted to give him. Ravi is attacked and nearly killed, Maj Aaditya’s boss is killed, his house is ransacked, Aman is followed to his school, and the old spymaster M K Dhar makes an appearance. Finally Zoya and Aman are taken to a safe house and Maj Aaditya starts out on his “Quest”.
He once again is back to being a soldier, the only condition that the PM and the NSA place on him. He agrees because the man who passed on the piece of paper to Anita was a Para commando.
The rest of the story is how Maj Aaditya teams up with Aman Karzai and finally manages to finish off the Chinese top folk involved in Project Lotus and Operation Camel. Some Indian officials that were involved also die during this process. Indian Naval Submarines get involved in the final standoff, and launch cruise missiles. Also an aircraft carrier is sent to bring back Maj Aaditya and the other Para who had been a captive.
The ending is really nice where Aman manages to meet with Rachel, the ex-President’s daughter and also sees Hanif growing up in the US.
My rating – 5/5. Eagerly awaiting the next book in the series.