Military Bookshelf: The Books of Summer, II

Military.com - Tom Miller

Jul 14, 2008

It's summertime and the living's easy. The reading should be too.  This is no time for serious literature or scholarly monographs.  There'll be plenty of time for that when the days grow shorter than Mariah Carey's skirts. Summer is the time for guilty pleasures of all sorts, including literary. Here are some titles that practically shout escape.
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Collision: A Novel of Suspense,
by Jeff Abbott.  Dutton, $24.95 (320p) ISBN 978-0-525-95028-8

Best-seller Abbott (Fear, Panic) turns up the heat in this fast-paced, atmospheric thriller.

Ben Forsberg is a mild-mannered consultant to government contractors like Hector Global, the lucrative security firm run by his best friend, Sam Hector. Imagine Forsberg's surprise when he's grabbed by Homeland Security officers and accused of being involved in a bizarre assassination/murder.

It seems that an assassin killed software developer Adam Reynolds, who was working for Hector Global on identifying members of a rogue covert operations unit called the Cellar. A short time later, the assassin turned up dead himself—with Forsberg's business card in his pocket.

It also seems that Reynolds wasn't the assassin's only target. His other target was a former CIA assassin and current Cellar agent codenamed Pilgrim, who not only cheated death but also tracked down and killed his attacker. Soon enough, Pilgrim, who was using Forsberg's identity and left his calling card on the body, rescues Forsberg from the feds and the two reluctantly team up to find out who is targeting them. And, why.

Forsberg and Pilgrim are both predator and prey. As they chase leads to unmask their nemesis, they also must avoid the clutches of Homeland Security and a second assassin. Meanwhile, they uncover tantalizing evidence of a possible terrorist attack in New Orleans.

The plot is labyrinthine, the characters are often not what they seem, and the action is sanguinary. Just the ticket for a summer escape.

Quotable

"Go shower. You smell like golf."
"What does golf smell like?"
"Sweat, grass, sunshine, and frustration."
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Moscow Rules,
by Daniel Silva.  Putnam's, $26.95 (448p) ISBN 978-0-399-15501-7

Bestseller Silva brings back Israeli super-spy Gabriel Allon for his eighth adrenaline-laced thriller.

This time, Allon finds himself at the deadly intersection of a resurgent Russia—gorged on oil profits and eager to flex its muscles—and international terrorism.

Allon is holed up at an Italian villa restoring a painting for the Vatican—and enjoying his honeymoon—when he's summoned to Rome to meet with Boris Otrovsky, a Russian journalist who claims to have information about a serious threat to the West and Israel. Otrovsky is assassinated, however, before he can speak to Allon.

Allon slips into Moscow to contact Otrovsky's colleague Olga Sukhova. Sukhova reluctantly reveals that a source overheard Russian oligarch, arms dealer, and former KGB officer Ivan Kharkov discussing a deal to sell anti-aircraft weapons to al-Qaeda. Sukhova's source is Kharkov's wife, Elena. It doesn't help that Kharkov has friends in high places.

With Western intelligence agencies picking up lots of "chatter" about future operations that refer to the "arrows of Allah," Allon has all the confirmation he needs to act. Securing Elena's cooperation, he devises a complicated sting to snatch Kharkov's files from his Moscow office and spirit them and Elena out of Russia.

Much of Silva's narrative seems lifted from recent headlines: the mysterious deaths of dissident Russian journalists, the indiscriminate selling of weapons, the sham elections, and the threatening bluster. It's no wonder that Allon heeds the Moscow Rules that guided Western agents during the Cold War: "Don't look back. You are never completely alone." Not to mention the Eleventh Commandment of spies: "Thou shalt not get caught."

Moscow Rules is an addictive thriller and a cautionary tale.

Quotable:

1. "The Americans love to monitor problems but do nothing about them."

2. "Tell [the French] they can cook for us. That's the one thing they do well."

3. "I can't make love in a room that smells like Chicken Kiev."
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Uneasy Relations,
by Aaron Elkins.  Berkley Prime Crime, $23.95 (278p) ISBN 978-0-425-22176-1

Former anthropologist Elkins (Little Tiny Teeth) brings back his anthropologist-detective Gideon Oliver, "the skeleton detective," for another in this popular series.

Oliver, author of Bones to Pick, an expose of scientific hoaxes, is off to Gibraltar for a conference commemorating the discovery there of Gibraltar Woman and Gibraltar Boy. The discovery is celebrated—and controversial—because it suggests that Gibraltar Woman—a human—mated with a Neanderthal to produce Gibraltar Boy.

Oliver, who is to speak outside the official proceedings, glibly suggests to a reporter that he's going to expose the discovery as a hoax.

Soon enough, someone is trying to kill him. When an archaeologist connected to the find dies in a house fire, Oliver teams up with a former student and current police detective on Gibraltar, Fausto Sotomayor, to get to the bottom of the mystery.

Elkins has his fans, but Uneasy Relations left me unmoved. I found the mystery obtuse, the pacing lethargic, the characters vapid, and the dialogue cerebral but dry.

Quotable:

"You'll wear out that sexy little musculus frontalis."

"I know every nook and notch and foramen in her body."

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Copyright 2008 by Tom Miller