A Murder of Crows

A Murder of Crows is the second book in Terrence McCauley’s trilogy of international espionage. The first, Sympathy for the Devil, has already been reviewed in this blog. This books starts just after a bio-attack had occurred in New York, but protagonist James Hicks caught the terrorist responsible, know as The Moroccan. Hicks contained the damage, but he also realized that the scientists who created the viral strain had done too good a job. It burned through the immune systems of those infected much too fast, so they died before the could become effective carriers. Hicks knew that error could be fixed. Because he had captured the Moroccan, Bajjah, who the CIA and DIA definitely wanted to question, they were now after Hicks, as was the Mossad. The DIA pursuant of Hicks was Mark Stephens. But Hicks and The Moroccan were not the biggest prizes. That was Jabbar, the most wanted man alive. Hicks also had Jabbar to worry about

There are other characters. Hicks’ lover was a Massad Spy, Tali Saddon, but her loyalties were divided between Hicks and the Massad. At a critical moment near the end of the book, Tali revealed to Hicks that she was pregnant with his child. In this book, the Dean announced his sudden and unexpected retirement from running the University. He was suffering from incurable metastatic cancer, and he chose Hicks as his replacement. Hicks got a short lecture on his new duties, but the Dean was dead within 24 hours of announcing Hicks as his replacement. In reference to the overwhelming set of problems with which he was confronted, McCauley referred to Hick’s “Carousel of Concern”: the University, Tali and the baby, Charles Demerest (head of Clandestine Services for the CIA); Stephens and the DIA, the Mossad, Jabbbar, and more. This is an action-packed and fast-paced novel and one must wonder whether Hicks is really up to the multiple tasks that he faces as the new Dean. After book two, there was no way not to jump into the third novel, the conclusion of McCauley’s trilogy.