McGarvey by David Hagberg

 In my review of Hagberg's lastest Kirk McGarvey book (Traitor), I said that I'd try to get hold of the book where McGarvey and Putin go head to head. Found it. Let's hear it for the public library.

Flashback nearly 30yr ago. McGarvey is a rookie agent still in training with the CIA. Mom and Dad live on a ranch in SW Kansas on most weekends. Their day job has them working on anti-missile satellite systems at the Los Alamos lab in New Mexico. And it looks like they may have made a breakthrough that will allow the US to tracking incoming Soviet missiles  almost at the time of launch. Not there yet, but close. 

They head for the ranch for some R&R and doing what ranch owners do. While at home, they are contacted by someone at the DOE about the possibility of a deep cover Russian agent working at the facility and wants to meet with them.  They drive over to an out of the way restaurant in CO only to get stood up. They leave and on the way home, they are run off the road and both perish in the wreck. 

Back to current day. McGarvey is pleasantly retired, living in a Greek island lighthouse with Pete, his bride. His buddy Otto, the computer nerd of nerds, tells Mac that his programs that scour all the data sources he can find has mentioned that the McGarvey deaths have again popped up. This sends Mac and Pete back to the US to see what can be found about a 30 year old cold case. 

With Otto's help, McGarvey starts peeling away the layers of the onion. Moscow hears that he is looking into his parent's death and wants to make sure he doesn't learn anything, primarily to protect their deep cover agent. Moscow sends one of the original killers and a small team with orders to kill McGarvey and Reneke. But when you target those two, their wives get caught up in the game. As it appears that the orders for the job came from the same unit that Putin commanded 30y ago, McGarvey calls him up and says, 'you want a war? I'll give you a 'bleeping' war. Calls him out by saying he's coming.

With Mac and Otto otherwise occupied, Pete and Lou (Otto's wife) go to meet with a Russian politician living in DC. At this meeting, a member of this small Russian team tracks them to their destination and opens fire through the glass hitting the politician and Lou. Both die.

Not a good idea to piss off Mac, Pete, and especially Otto. He sets loose a digital worm far worse than Stuxnet in the SVR mainframe just waiting for Otto's signal to effectively destroy the entire system. He then goes off the grid headed for Moscow. Meanwhile, most every clue ends up in a gunfight on the streets of Georgetown, rural Kansas, Albuquerque, Zurich restaurants. Each shootout leaves more Russian covert agents DOA.  

Once Mac (by plane) and Otto (by train) arrive in Russia, both are arrested and sent to a Gulag in the middle of nowhere with no weapons, phone, or any way to communicate with Otto's computer system.

On one level, this book is partly some back story in McGarvey's life. And it's pretty interesting. Especially the McGarvey's ranch foreman, Bob Wehr. Even 30y later, he keeps popping up where least expected. 

Bottom line is that Hagberg can spin a yarn with the best of the current crop of espionage/thriller writers. Interesting tidbit is that both Traitor and McGarvey both feature Otto is a starring role. But I'll be back. I still have over a dozen books of his waiting to be read. My main limit will be in how many our county library has on the shelf. 

ECD

The Bone Records by Rich Zahradnik

Zahradnik provides a different venue than one I’ve read before. The main locale is in the Coney Island section in New York City and the surrounding area which is dominated by Russian immigrants, an area known as Little Odessa. Along with the immigrants were former KGB agents and Russian Mafia figures. The plot contains crooked US law enforcement figures including in the NYPD and FBI. The protagonist is Grigg, the son of a Russian immigrant and his Jamaican wife. Grigg looks brown, not like the Russians. Despite having grown up in Little Odessa, he knows his skin color makes him unaccepted by most of the Russian community. 

 

After the reader meets some of the key players in the story, we learn that Grigg has been looking for his father who disappeared about six month earlier. Suddenly his father appears in the midst of a chase for his own life, and then is murdered in front of Grigg. Grigg had good things to say about his father who had always been a good and responsible father since Grigg’s mom died of natural causes when Grigg was only 18 months old. As Grigg begins his search for what happened, struggling to figure out who he can trust and who is corrupt, the reader also is pulled along in what seems like an impossible scheme to unravel.

 

The term “bone records” refers to an old method for listening to music pirated from the US to Russia when Grigg’s father was a young man. Somehow records for listening to music were created on old x-rays, and those x-rays were typically of various bones, whether they were skull x-rays or some other bony structure. The records were sold on the black market. There appears to be a connection to Russia’s attempts to influence the 2016 election in the US, but that is never fully explained. There is also a tie into a shipment container which turns out to have a significant amount of gold bars and American cash. Grigg has an ex-girlfriend who is killed as this story unfolds, but by this time, Grigg has become more interested in another woman who remained a bit mysterious right to the end of the story.

 

While I found the Little Odessa part of this story to have great interest, I certainly had a hard time following the plot and figuring out who was who and what alliances were trustworthy. I can’t give this novel a great rating, but it did have some curious and redeeming features.

 

WCD

Treasue State by C.J. Box

 

Cassie Dewell’s P.I. business is thriving.  She has more work than she and her receptionist can handle so she takes on April Pickett (Joe and Mary Beth’s adopted daughter) as an intern.  Currently, Cassie has two open cases.

The most immediate case involves a wealthy Florida women who was conned out of her fortune by a devious Montana man.  The previous P.I. on the case was murdered near Anaconda, Montana.  Cassie quickly discovers a likely suspect in the area but his charm, wit, and skills of deception temporarily misdirect her and put her in danger.  The second case is more abstract.  Someone has written a poem promising a buried treasure in Montana to anyone who can decipher the clues found within the poem.  Cassie is hired by the poet not to find the treasure but to see if she can find and identify him.  Fierce competition among the treasure hunters to find the treasure has already resulted in five deaths.  The instigator poet wants to be assured he will remain anonymous.

While I prefer the Joe Pickett series to the Cassie Dewell series, I've grown to enjoy most anything C.J. Box writes.  That same under estimated, ‘dumb like a fox’ attribute comes through in all his lead characters.  That combined with the western outdoor backdrop always makes his work worth reading.

Thanks to NetGalley for the advance look.

Comment from West Coast Don:

I agree with Midwest Dave that it's a bit strange to read our beloved Box working on a set of characters other than Joe Pickett, but hey, this is CJ Box. I spent a summer in the Bozman area, where Cassie has her PI business, then 16 years old and working on a dude ranch as a wrangler. Cassie has a good business and she is a compelling character, but there haven't been enough books and enough stories about her to have the same depth of feeling created by Joe Pickett. 

Nonetheless, I'm glad I read this, and if Box produces more of this series, or anything else, I'll read that to. The book's plot developed slowly as the author put forth all the background information that we needed, but it picked up into a rapid pace The resolution of the two main plots was excellent. I look forward to more.

WCD

Traitor by David Hagberg

At one time, I was an avid reader of Hagberg’s Kirk McGarvey books but for some reason he fell off my radar. Last reviewed book was 2018's Face Off. There’s been four other books since then so I’ve missed a lot. McGarvey is remarried to Pete. She is a CIA interrogation expert who has a good aim. He now has a below-the-knee prosthetic limb. And somewhere along the way, he did a favor for Putin. Otto Reneke’s wife Louise has been killed, he renamed his computer AI (no longer, ‘his darlings’) Lou in memory of his deceased wife. And he too has remarried, to a CIA analyst, Mary. Lots has happened.

Traitor (2022) opens up with a bang. Remember Otto is McGarvey’s long-time friend and computer savant. In some previous books, Otto managed to hack into the intelligence networks of Russia, Pakistan, and North Korea. Those tasks were insanely difficult and to save him from having to retrace his steps, Otto inserted a back door known only to him so he could slip in and out quietly.

But somehow, one of those back doors was penetrated, but not closed. Whomever on the other side now had access to the CIA’s deepest secrets. When it’s known that Otto’s back doors are a 2-way street, the CIA assumes that Otto left the return access on purpose. Ergo, Otto must be a traitor for ‘the other side’. Otto is arrested and put into confinement for interrogation.

All this happens while Kirk and Pete are in Japan looking for a place to call home (after their Florida and Greek island homes became unsafe and unlivable. More back story I’ve missed). Mary calls, tells McGarvey what’s happening, and they rush back to DC.

No one in the know thinks Otto is a traitor. For one reason, the evidence against him is just too overwhelming to be true. Even Aldrich Ames left a trail. There must be a mole trying to set Otto up for a fall. And over the years, Otto's digital abilities at meddling in other countries affairs has resulted in not only a level of respect, but also quite a few enemies.

The rest of the book is about the mole hunt. And the hunt takes McGarvey and Pete into deep dives into what they can find connected to the Russian Embassy, the FBI, Moscow, the SVU and GRU, Pakistan, and North Korea. While he is challenging his ability to handle jet lag, attempts on his and Pete’s life, Mary’s life, not to mention the murders of dang near everyone who crosses McGarvey path, most of which were killed by someone not named McGarvey.

Still puzzled why I lost track of Hagberg. His books are taut thrillers full of interesting characters, some of which (Otto in particular) can be a bit over the top when it comes to their genius ranking. Otto's eccentricities can be quite amusing, too. For example, his favorite snack is Twinkies washed down with a Heineken. He preferred 'uniform' at the CIA headquarters is a CCCP ball cap over a KGB sweatshirt. While McGarvey’s leg keeps him from physically chasing down the opposition, his mind wasn’t affected, and he can assemble a puzzle faster than anyone else involved.

How does Kirk McGarvey stack up to Brad Thor’s Scot Harvath? Each are the super-spy hero for an author. If I had to come down to one trait, I might say that McGarvey is more of a thinker and Harvath is quicker to pull the trigger. Maybe after reading the next book about each, I might be humming a different tune. I’m sure some enterprising reader out there has penned a ‘compare and contrast’ essay on these two.

I looked up Hagberg’s books in order. Traitor is #29 in the Kirk McGarvey series (he has two earlier series for a total of 39 titles in print). Many are familiar and pre-date this blog. Not sure which titles I might go back to read. Two in particular and tripped my trigger. The first, of course (Without Honor, 1989) and whichever book puts McGarvey and Putin in the same room. How these guys keep dreaming up so many stories for a character is beyond me. That’s why I’m a reader and not a writer.

The Patriot Attack by Kyle Mills

The next episode in the series of books based on the original Robert Ludlum Covert-One story.

A Japanese nuclear reactor is having issues that are complicated by a typhoon. As a result, one of the reactor’s cooling towers is shut down. Afterwards, that part of the plant is off-limits (radiation). But the military has sort of moved in and started using some of the facilities.

Covert-One, an off-the-books group of operatives that work for the President, avoiding all the hassles that come with Congressional oversight. They’ve been cultivating an asset in Japan who now has samples from the damaged reactor. Operative Jon Smith has medical training and is sent to Japan for a clandestine meeting with the asset. The meet goes south, the asset is killed, and Smith gets away having suffered numerous injuries. But he got the delivery.

The reactor samples are very curious. Strange and never-before seen microstructures within the concrete and metal structures.

The head of Japanese military. Masao Takahashi, was a child after WW2 and witnessed the devastation after being nuked so he has no love for the US even though in current day, Japan and the US are allies. He also can’t stand the Chinese (and the Chinese don’t like the Japanese either). When he ascended to be the military Chief of Staff 30 or so years ago, he began a research program into novel modes of offensive and defensive weapons, primarily of the electronic variety (he likes to brag that their digital capabilities make the NSA look like children). One of the areas he focused on was nanotechnology before most people even knew about it. And the fruits of the research efforts are a nano-bot that feeds on infrastructure (concrete, metal, wood) destroying what it eats and then reproduces itself and grow exponentially. Release it on a city and the city begins to crumble under mysterious circumstances eventually infiltrating the military infrastructure. The sample of concrete Smith obtained was the first evidence of what the Japanese military has developed.

What the general wants to do is get China to make a move and then release those bots all over China effectively bringing it to its knees within months. The death toll would be in the millions. Such a development would upset the balance of power worldwide and make Japan THE dominant world power.

Covert-One, the President and the Prime Ministers of China and Japan meet to minimize diplomatic and military tension while Smith and his partner, Randi Russell, start working back channels to locate and destroy Takahashi’s command bunker and bot development center.

I’ve read multiple Kyle Mills books beginning when he picked up the Mitch Rapp series when Vince Flynn died. I thought I was getting a book that was a Kyle Mills product alone but found out this was #12 out of 12 Covert-One books that Robert Ludlum started in 2000 (he died in 2001). Those 12 books have since been written by 6 different authors; this is Mills’ third Covert-One book and Mills says it’s the one that is best suited for Mitch Rapp fans. I’d agree.

Mills is an exceptional author. He has well over 20 books out there with multiple NY Times bestsellers. In the class of authors that mostly began with Tom Clancy, Mills must be considered one of the best at the techno-thriller genre. As I got deeper into the plot, I started thinking, ‘nano-bots? That feed on concrete? That multiply? Seriously? Was thinking this sounded outlandish. But then I thought back to one of Clancy’s earlier books (late 80’s, early 90s?) where he mentioned a military unit was moving behind enemy lines and released a surveillance drone to see what was going on over the facing hills and then used the drone to fire on the enemy. At the time, that seemed a bit far-fetched. Not so much today. Chances are nanotechnology has advanced well beyond what we mere mortals can imagine. So maybe this plot isn’t that far out.

Stay tuned.

ECD

Night by Elie Wiesel

I’ll provide this review as a drastic contrast of experiences. I had just finished the last page of Night by Elie Wiesel, his 1956 memoir originally published in Yiddish and then in French in 1958. It’s about Elie being with his father in the Auschwitz and Buchenwald concentration camps. His father died only a short while before the camp was liberated. I’ve read a lot about the holocaust, but it’s taken me decades to get ready to read this book. This book resulted in the author winning the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986. It is a great testimony of man’s inhumanity to man. The deprivation, abuse and death which is written about leads me back to one of my own earlier comments, that we humans are not a praiseworthy species. If you’re interested in learning more details about the holocaust, this is an essential novel to digest.

 

The contrast in my experience was that only a few hours after completing Wiesel’s book, my wife and I took four of our grandchildren (ages nine to four, and there are two more who are simply too young) to see The Lion King on stage in San Diego. I was familiar with the animated movie, but I had not gone to this play before. It was stunning, literally about “the circle of life.” I was in tears of joy from the opening number, it is so beautiful. We had planned this day for 8 months since it is not always easy to bring the family together, and I could both see the beauty of the circle on stage and feel it in real life in our seats. The children were all entranced, as was I. We may not be an impressive species, but we do have our special moments, and I was glad to have had such a moment after having spent some hours on the dark side of our existence with Wiesel.

 

WCD