With the short audio drama The Assassination of Gabriel Seth, Andy Smillie adds another piece to his slowly-growing jigsaw of Flesh Tearers stories. A distant sequel to A Son’s Burden, it returns to Nekkaris as Chapter Master Gabriel Seth comes to pay his respects to the men he left behind to die. In the quiet corridors of a shrine built to remember their sacrifice, Seth is confronted by an assassin sent by powerful enemies to remove him from the head of the Chapter, using his own rage against him.
Gabriel Seth (Andrew Wincott) and an Eversor assassin (Steve Conlin) – two characters tailor-made for the audio format. There’s something deeply visceral about hearing great actors voicing two such rage-filled characters knocking lumps off each other, and true to Smillie’s usual form the fighting is described beautifully for the actors to portray. Seth, however, is so much more than just his anger, and the combination of writing and Wincott’s acting brings that to life better than ever before, both during the action and elsewhere as Seth wrestles with his demons and accusers. This gets right to the heart of the changing way Seth sees the Chapter and his role within it; it’s gripping stuff.