Ryan Chaise is an agent with MI6.
Was, actually. And sort of will be again. But mostly when we meet him, Chaise is an agent of a quite a different type than what we find in this compendium. He is a real estate agent.
This ex-pat is working the realty business in the Costa del Sol of southern Spain as we first encounter him and having to deal with the fact that in the current economy, being honest with his clients was important but being totally so was not conducive to earning the commissions he was seeking. Sales were few and hard to get.
Chaise is living in that area because he did not want to live in England anymore. He had "left the old life behind. The old life that still came to keep him company at night, the memories he'd tried so hard to forget". After considering heading to somewhere below the equator, "far, far away, South America or New Zealand", he went to the Mediterranean because his girl friend, Angelina, was half-Spanish and was heading there for a job.
That had all been five years before the first recorded adventure and in that half decade, life had become good for him with her. Not exactly profitable at times but uneventful and happy. "Unfortunately, as Chaise knew only too well from experience, happiness didn't last for long."
What will cause a major change again in Chaise's life is foretold to us at the beginning of that first adventure when in an unmarked foreword we are warned, "You shouldn't pick up strangers on the road. Ever seen the film The Hitcher, the one starring Rutger Hauer? Hitchhiker, a real psychopath, deals out death like a gambler does cards. Dismissive. Advice given freely - don't risk picking up strangers. It's not worth it. This is what happens when such advice is ignored..."
For Chaise, a simple act of kindness in picking up a hiker along the road after a sales call will have major ramifications and will pull him back into a world he was happy to have left.
Good Line:
- After a short physical altercation with an officious sod who announced that Chaise was being 'bloody stupid', Chaise replies, "It's in my nature. So is killing people who don't do what I ask."