The Shadow Patrol

Just released last month, this is the 6th book in the John Wells series, all of which have been favorably reviewed in the blog. Berenson knows how to spin a story, how to have his characters evolve from one book to the next, and how to keep the reader in suspense. Berenson is one of my main authors, and while he presents John Wells as a tough and morally inflexible figure, seemingly a caricature of the protagonists in our blog, he just does it so well. The book mostly takes place in Afghanistan and the story starts with the suicide bombing that took out a critical CIA station, killing seven people and thereby crippling the effort for several years. (Do you remember when that really happened.) In the vacuum left behind, unexpected things were happening with the military efforts, strikes were being made when the targets were not there. It became clear that there was a mole in the CIA who was tipping off key Afghanis about how to avoid the next droid strike, when to escape from the next stealth attack, etc. John Wells was brought into find out what he could. It seems the heroin trade was somehow involved and some soldiers were making big money by participating in it, but they were tied to and directed by someone that was high up in the CIA chain of authority. This was a fast read for me, one I could not put down, and I did not see the twist coming that brought the story to a resolution. At the same time, although it was fiction, I thought the book brought me to a better understanding of the war effort. Berenson’s writing is strong, and the dialogue is excellent. If you haven’t read Berenson, start with the first book in the series, “The Faithful Spy,” and work your way forward. You have a lot to look forward to.