A Divided Spy

If you’re a fan of espionage stories, then you must have wondered what it would really like to be a spy, not in terms of the actual spying parts of the job, but the personal parts – what happens to relationships over time, and more important, what happens to one’s own sense of self as the result of spending years living a dangerous deception. Charles Cumming in The Divided Spy has captured the essence of the impact of spying on the character of a man who has some residual degree of humanity, a theme Cumming has fleshed out in both the protagonist, English Thomas Kell and his principal foe, the Russian Alexander Minasian, the man who was responsible for the murder of Kell’s love, Rachel Wallinger.

While there were excellent ancillary characters that Cumming used to tell his story, the primary action was between Kell and Minasian. Their dialogue is riveting. The story starts in a casino (not at a baccarat table), but at a roulette while as a British passport office employee, a gambling addict, predictably got in debt from which he could only extract himself by agreeing to provide real British passports to some terrorists. The main terrorist has the intent to do a mass murder in England is an English-born Muslim. After spending time fighting as a Syrian rebel, he has returned to England to carry the jihad there. He has adopted an alias, Shahid Khan. The Khan plan becomes central to the Kell-Minasian conflict, and you’ll have to read this great thriller to get those details.

A Divided Spy is Cumming’s eighth novel, but it’s my first. ECD has already favorably reviewed another Thomas Kell novel, A Foreign Country. I’m so impressed with his story telling that I’m going to hunt for another one of his novels to read in the very near future. St. Martin’s Press has a winner on its hands. I’m lucky to have gotten an advanced copy, and it is due to hit the shelves on 2/14/17.

The Guns of Ridgewood, A Western of Modern America

The Guns of Ridgewood, A Western of Modern America, is Aaron Cooley’s third novel and the second one reviewed in this blog. I kid you not, and excuse my graphic image, but except for occasionally attending to bodily functions, I did not put this book down until I read the last page.

Cooley opened his book with a brief and chilling prologue:

           

            They rode in silence, their mission heavy on their souls.

            And on their minds, the horrific events for which this was to be their response.

            They knew vengeance could never be achieved like in the stories they once told their children,

            but believed this was the only quest that might bring quiet to their pain.

            Only a soul as tortured as their own would have any prayer of stopping them.

And then in his first chapter, Cooley told the story of the bloody and successful assault against a Congressman and his family, a week after a similar assault had occurred against a Congresswoman and her family. The assailants in both case left their weapons to be discovered, as if they were leaving a message. Cooley had this reader in his grip from that point, and he never let go until this political drama had been told.

Yet another Congressman, Homer Blunt, thought he might be the next target, and it was his decision to bring in Clayton “Sour” Manco, who had previously been the lead agent for the FBI’s High Value Targets team. But, he had left the FBI with a stain on his reputation and had deteriorated into a deep depression and deeper alcoholism. Blunt knew that Manco was the guy to protect him if he could just get him off the juice and focused on the task at hand.

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The author skillfully advanced his story with complimentary characters while occasionally giving the hungry reader some details about Manco’s backstory. The timing of the story development was perfect. I can tell you that the author was writing about a crucial and current political topic that is quite real, but I don’t want to give away the plot. I gave his other novel Four Seats great praise, and this master storyteller has done it again.

Note the reference to this blog on the cover of the book - how cool is that?!

Night School

Night School is the next Jack Reacher novel by Lee Child, and it’s a flashback book to the 1990s when Reacher was 35 years old. A plot is uncovered in Europe to deliver $100,000,000 from a terrorist source to a U.S. soldier who happens to be AWOL. It’s not clear what the money is for or what where the solider has been hiding. Given the size of the transaction, it is assumed a weapon is being smuggled from the U.S. military that is either biological or nuclear. Reacher is assisted by Sergeant Frances Neagley, who he claimed was the best soldier he had ever worked with, not a woman with whom he is romantically involved. Child writes effectively about the sexual tension that still exists between them. Child writes about intrigues involving the terrorists, German police, the various agencies in DC that are involved in the chase, and German organized crime.

I’m not writing much about this book because it really did not capture my interest. It was a Reacher novel, so I slugged through to the end, but it was not up to Reacher standards. ‘nuf said

Gunmetal Gray by Mark Greaney

His name is Chief Sergeant Class Three Fan Jiang. Unit 61398. Detachment Red Cell. 

Unit 61398 is the hacking battalion of the People's Liberation Army, China. And the Red Cell Detachment is the most secretive group in Unit 61398. They answer to their director who answers only to the President. The hackers of Red Cell represent the absolute cream of the computer geeks in China. There is no network they can't penetrate. Their prime task is to try and break into secretive Chinese databases to find security holes that need to be corrected. At this, Fan is the best. 

To keep these hackers in line, all their loved ones and families are brought to a housing unit nearby and given a pretty good life as Chinese peasant life goes. The families don't need much and they want for nothing. They think it's their family member's reward for doing a good job. Having family close by.

They are actually hostages. If a hacker screws up, a family member disappears. Simple as that. If a hacker no longer has any family to be held hostage, the hacker is no longer under any threat so said hacker also disappears. China has thousands wanting to fill the opening. Manpower was never one of China's limitations.

The only family Fan has are his parents. When they disappear under shady circumstances, Fan is sure he is soon to be targeted. He makes a clandestine request for help from Taiwan for help crossing the border to Hong Kong. When the help doesn't show, nerdy Fan - a far cry from being a rifle-carrying soldier - has to go dark.

As you might guess, there are any number of countries that would love to get their hands on Fan and debrief him about China's cyber defenses. The primaries are, of course, Russia and the US.

The CIA sends in a lone agent to track Fan and identify his location. Once verified, a ground unit will swoop in and pick up Fan. Simple enough.

The agent isn't a CIA employee. At least not now. He was once. Cortland Gentry is in his 40s. Twenty-some years ago, he was a CIA clandestine operative. One of their best, mostly because of his instincts and ability to act in silence or in extreme violence. Sort of went afoul of his bosses and found himself on the wrong end of a hunt so he joined Cheltenham Security Services, a Brit firm run by his former CIA handler, Sir Donald Fitzroy.

China can't just send in a search and capture/kill squad into Hong Kong, so the head of the Unit hires Cheltenham to do the dirty work and Gentry gets the job. But Gentry has also been contracted by the CIA also to find Jiang. Despite his falling out with The Company, they still know he is very good. And this is just a manhunt for a nerd. Gentry surely can't run afoul of such a simple assignment.

Fan Jiang isn't all that good at tradecraft and he thinks his only way to safety is to stay low and do some digital deeds for a Hong Kong Triad gang. Once done, he expects to be taken to the border and released. Naive guy.

Gentry tracks Jiang to the particular Triad gang. When he tries to move in, a Russian black ops squad interferes. Jiang gets dumped on a freighter run by a Vietnamese gang. When Gentry finally tracks down Jiang again, the same Russian squad appears and messes up Gentry's plans. Jiang fumbles and escape only to be grabbed by a river gang of Cambodians who turn him over the the uber SE Asia crime force in Thailand. And guess who shows up again? Yep, the Russians, but the first extraction attempt goes pretty badly. The Chinese are getting impatient with Gentry and send in their own death squad.

Gentry (CIA codename: Violator; Interpol tag: the Gray Man) seems to be one step behind in the hunt for Jiang, but still manages to stay in the game as Fan stumbles and trips over his own feet in a feeble attempt at escape and evasion. Plus there are other issues at play that are way, way, way above Gentry's pay grade.

This is the 2nd by Mark Greaney reviewed here at MRB, the first being #5 in the series, Back Blast reviewed by West Coast Don about a year ago. Gunmetal Gray is the 6th Gray Man book. Highly entertaining, very readable, a character in Gentry that we can root for, and far too many plot twists to reveal. Greaney gives we newbies enough glimpses into Gray's past to entice us to go back to the 1st book (The Gray Man) and work through the series. Recent reviews here at MRB have, rightly or wrongly, entered into a series well past the first book, forcing us to decide to stay on this path of almost randomly selected new releases or go back to the beginning. I really think this is one I'll try to find #1 and start moving forward. Both WCD and I liked Gentry. Fun stuff. See you soon, Violator.

ECD

Held For Ransom

Russell Atkinson is a former 25-year FBI agent who has now written six books in his Cliff Knowles series. After reading his sixth book, Behead Me, I decided to jump back to the beginning with the first one, Held for Ransom. This book, as the author suggests, is sort of a blueprint about what to do and expect if you or someone in your family is unfortunate enough to be the victim of a kidnapping. There are lots of characters in this story including the victim, Carl Fischer, his family, the kidnappers, and the many FBI agents and police who are involved in the attempt to save Fisher’s life.

Fischer is one of the richest men in the Silicon Valley as the founder and CEO of Claritiva. Kidnapped from the parking lot of his company, Fischer’s family was presented with a demand for $650,000, which sounded like an odd sum to everyone. He was tied up, blindfolded, and taken to a secret location. When the FBI got involved, Knowles was contacted because his boss could not be reached and Knowles was the Principal Relief Supervisor. He was the guy who ended up not being in charge of the operation to rescue Fischer, a job that fell to the untalented and unknowledgeable Peter Stroaker, Special Agent in Charge. And the chase was on, sometimes making the FBI look like incredible professionals, other times showing them to be bumbling incompetents.

After having read both his first and sixth books, it is obvious that Atkinson’s storytelling improved greatly over the course of this novels. In this first book, he had too many characters as he wrote a book that oftentimes read like a script from the old TV show Dragnet – very matter of fact, intense but emotionally tightly controlled. Nonetheless, Knowles is a compelling figure who deftly manages the intricate politics of his agency while finding a way to work the crime. I’ve already grabbed the second book in the series, Cached Out, and I intend to read that one very soon.

The Hell Of It All by Bob Kroll

It hasn’t been all that long sing TJ Peterson was drummed out of the Vancouver PD. Anger issues. Could’ve been because his wife was running around on him. But she and her paramour were crushed when a garbage truck flipped over on them. Or it could be his guilt from being with HIS paramour (a hooker) when that accident occurred.

To fill time, his former partner gets him some minor surveillance jobs. On one occasion, a snitch, who goes by the nickname Turtle, mentions that he overheard these 2 guys trying to top each other talking about a body buried going on 20y ago in a city campground. A cold case that doesn’t get any colder. Where is the body, who is buried, and why were they offed and unceremoniously dumped in a hole?

And remember Peterson’s hooker? Her daughter has disappeared and was last seen with one of the more violent dealers in the Canadian west. So Peterson is juggling two cases: the coldest of the cold cases and a hot current case. And both revolve around buying, selling, using, dealing, and dying from heroin.

The two separate, but strangely intertwined cases take Peterson’s days while trying to stay sober dominates his nights. All the while considering eating a bullet.

Perhaps one of the darkest noir book I have read recently, or ever. Kroll’s 2^nd JT Peterson book was deeply disturbing. Probably because a close friend of my kids from high school succumbed to heroin and was missing for over a year until his remains were found in a nearby forest. In the last half of the book, I could see his face in my mind’s eye. Hopefully no one else will have the same reaction I did.

But it was a good book. Just dark. Really, really dark.

East Coast Don