The English Spy - Daniel Silva

I always like spending time with Gabriel Allon, but I wonder just how many missions he has left in him. When The English Spy begins, Gabriel is anxiously awaiting the birth of his twins while restoring the Caravaggio he recovered a couple books ago. But well, in steps Graham Seymour after a Princess Diana type character is blown up on her yacht.

At the heart of the bombing is an ex-IRA rebel named Aemon Quinn (remember I listen to these things people so I'm sorry about the spelling). Turns out this is just one of the guys who captured and tortured Christopher Keller when he was an SAS man in Belfast. Aemon Quinn has been working on behalf of belligerent governments ever since. His plot pulls in both Keller and Gabriel.

Keller begins his transition back to life as an Englishman and away from his time as a paid assassin. There are a lot of "coincidences" and connections in this book which are a bit of a stretch, but Gabriel still runs a tight ship and a good operation. When he's the chief of the office I don't know how much more action his 60 year old body can take, but I guess I'll find out when I'm finally caught up with Silva's feverish writing pace. 

All in all, all the beloved characters are in this book and all the elements that make for a good Allon novel. But how much more gas does this favored spy have? Are the books making a turn to start following Keller instead?

3 1/2 / 5 Stars. 

Deliver Us From Evil - David Baldacci

Someone left this at my house. I never say no to free books but maybe I should start. I've heard that Baldacci is a good writer. He sure does sell a lot of books, but for the life of me, after reading this one, I can't at all figure out why. Perhaps his earlier books are better. This one had the feel of a real mass-produced churn factory.

Let's start with the premise. A. Shaw, a secret agent who works for an unnamed US agency, I think, decides to take down Evan Waller, a Canadian who leads a sex-trafficking business and has decided to sell nuclear materials to a terrorist organization. At the same time, Reggie Campion, a beautiful British woman who works for a secret vigilante organization also decides to take out Waller, on the premise that his real identity is that of a former KGB heavy by the name of Fedir Kuchin. 

Both agencies work at cross purposes to get Waller until the nuclear deal falls through and Shaw's agency decides Waller is no longer a worthy target. However, by this point, Shaw has fallen a bit for Reggie, who is masquerading as a wealthy American orphan and has piqued the interest of the sadistic Mr. Waller. Thinking Reggie doesn't know what she's getting into, Shaw wants to stay to protect her. In the meantime, he's regretting ending a relationship with journalist Katie James, and his boss, Frank, constantly reminds him that he's not worthy of the woman. 

So on the face of it, if I had just read the above, I'd be like, hmmmm sounds interesting. But man the writing and the characters will really let a girl down. This reads more like a bare bones screen play that no one picked up so Baldacci decided to turn it into a novel. Although the dialogue and low-brow descriptions make it a fast read, the only thing positive I can say is that at least I didn't spend too much time on it. My purpose was to read it lake-side at our family cottage over vacation and I mostly succeeded because the 3-4 page chapters were perfect for the constant interruption of my two toddlers.

So here's what went wrong. The characters all kind of suck. Their motivations are uneven, their backstories provided as a matter of rote. Their interactions with each other don't really make sense. People pop in and out of the plot without seeming to really know what they are doing there. When Frank tells us that Shaw doesn't deserve Katie James, we're not really sure why? Because he's emotionally unavailable? He's a secret agent, I'm not sure how available he's supposed to be. Meanwhile Shaw is getting all googly over Reggie while at the same time telling us that he's not too interested. It's all very awkward in the writing. 

The book also just flat out tells us things about the people without letting the reader learn them organically to the story. Evan Waller, the evil man in the story is completely evil. The only off detail is a fondness for his own mother and a leaning towards being religious. This, I suppose, is supposed to give him some depth, but it just doesn't work. 

In the end, Waller is played out like an evil genius who is one step ahead of our heroes and he is, until seemingly he's not and the reasons why don't really feel all that realistic. 

While reading this book, I was increasingly feeling like perhaps this was at least the second book in a series and that perhaps I was missing something. When I got home from my internet free vacation, I looked it up and indeed it IS the second book in a series about A. Shaw (yeah he has no first name, get over it). So I thought, I should go ahead and read that maybe to get some context, but according to goodreads, I read it 5 years ago (you can find the description of The Whole Truth and my original Goodreads review here). And even reading my review I have NO idea what it was about and I can't actually remember reading it at all. Memorable huh? 

This book is a major skip unless you are on the beach and want an easy read. Some poor guy on our airplane back was reading a different Baldacci book and I gave him this one as he said he'd not read it and I finally finished it 20 minutes into the flight. That poor guy has no idea what I just did to him, but if he was reading another, he maybe won't be surprised. I think I'll let another 5 years pass before I read another of Baldacci's novels.

2/5 Stars.

The Girl in the Spider's Web - David Lagercrantz

I was concerned that Lagercrantz wouldn't be able to capture the odd mix of action and exposé that marked the earlier Millennium books. I was thankfully wrong. 

This book finds us with our two friends, Lisbeth Salander and Mikhail Blomkvist again on the hunt of a story. Mikhail's little magazine has suffered a bit since its last scoop and is now partly owned by a larger media corporation which has threatened to show Mikhail the door. He's lost his stuff. His writing is tired and so is Mikhail. 

Lisbeth, however, has been busy. She's been trying to track down her erstwhile sister Camille, who she suspects has picked up where their horrible father left off. In order to get the information she needs, she sneaks into the NSA to find get the dirt on her sister's organization. In the meantime, there is a Swedish computer genius and his autistic son Franz and August Balder, who get caught in a struggle for Franz's technology. Franz is murdered while Mikhail is on his way to interview him. 

And if that was then end of the conspiracy, this would be a poor Millennium novel indeed. It goes deeper than that and of course Salander is in the mix on it all as well. Mikhail and Lisbeth maintain a loose affiliation and friendship and it's nice to see them work together again. 

There were a couple sections of exposition that may seem slow, but that again is also characteristic of this series. This is a solid action/conspiracy drama, perfect for fans of the first three novels. I can't write any more without giving away the goose.

3.5/5 Stars.