This one is well-worth the thriller enthusiast’s time, which holds true for all the novels Berenson has written to date.
John Wells returns in another exciting and entirely plausible verge-of-war thriller.
The Iranians are apparently about to get the bomb, and the U.S. is ready to go to war to stop them. But is it true? Too late, ex–CIA agent Wells discovers a plot to dupe the two nations into a needless war. Two commercial jets explode, one of them over Mumbai. Almost 300 innocent travelers are killed. The Iranian government disavows responsibility, but perhaps it's sending America a warning: Don’t mess with us. Readers of his earlier adventures know that Wells is a convert to Islam, adding one more layer of complication to a life fraught with danger. His deadly adversaries include an Israeli agent code-named Salome, an accomplished killer who wants the U.S. to believe that Iran has amassed enough highly enriched uranium to build an atomic bomb. If Salome gets her way, Israel’s best ally will destroy its worst enemy. Wells will do everything in his power to stop the plan. So Salome wants Wells dead, but she finds him “harder to kill than a Negev spider.” Despite her uncharitable opinion, Wells is a sympathetic hero who works with CIA agents to defuse a likely disaster. Eventually, “America’s fate”—Iran’s as well, obviously—“depends on three men in Bellville, South Africa. Two can’t stand each other.” Berenson is a master at building tension, with a ticking clock that’s built into the title—America’s attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities is only 12 days away. This well-written and fast-moving novel delivers more than a good plot. It illustrates how in the midst of regional chaos, a great power can jump to calamitous conclusions.
This one is well-worth the thriller enthusiast’s time, which holds true for all the novels Berenson has written to date.Pub Date: Feb. 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-399-15974-9
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: Jan. 7, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2015
A fast-paced, atmospheric thriller that works less well in reflecting on the banality of evil.
In 1962, the year of Adolf Eichmann's execution, CIA analyst Aaron Wiley, nephew of famed Nazi hunter Max Weill, tracks notorious concentration camp torturer Otto Schramm to Argentina—where Aaron becomes involved with Schramm's daughter.
Max, a Holocaust survivor who was on the cover of Time magazine with his "old rival" Simon Wiesenthal, refuses to believe official accounts that Schramm is dead. Maybe another evil Nazi, but not the one with whom he once studied medicine and the one who conducted hideous experiments on children at Auschwitz. Not the Mengele associate who chatted with Max at the camp knowing Max's son was being led into the gas chamber. The Nazi hunter's skepticism is borne out when, joined by Aaron at an outdoor cafe in Hamburg, he spots Schramm, whom he recognizes from the way he walks. Max's failing health doesn't allow him to pursue Schramm, aka Helmut Braun, after his prey slips away. Reluctantly, Aaron takes his uncle's place. It doesn't take him long to get introduced to the daughter, Hanna, in Buenos Aires. Quickly attracted to her, he finds himself in the untenable position of secretly tailing her when not enjoying her considerable charms. Fueled by brilliant scenes of dialogue between Aaron and Hanna, who, at considerable psychological cost, has come to accept her father's evil past, Kanon's latest sophisticated thriller is teeming with suspense. Surrounded by aggressively anti-Semitic acquaintances of Hanna's who are hoping for a Fourth Reich and working with British and Israeli operatives with conflicting agendas, Aaron is an endangered odd man out. As fast as the pages turn, though, the novel stumbles with less-than-convincing character developments and plot turns. While elements of the Casablanca formula work well at first, ultimately they don't.
A fast-paced, atmospheric thriller that works less well in reflecting on the banality of evil.Pub Date: Nov. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5011-2142-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: Aug. 18, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2019
Suspenseful yet routine, with oversized bogeymen who seem more menacing than they really are, ethical dilemmas that dissolve...
Joe Pickett’s fantastical 14th pits him against a nest of assassins that just happens to include his old pal Nate Romanowski.
Since Wyoming governor Spencer Rulon got Joe rehired at his old seniority level and with a new raise after he quit the Game and Fish Department after his last run-in with corrupt authority figures (Breaking Point, 2013), Joe’s seriously in his debt. So when Rulon sends him undercover to remote Medicine Wheel County to check out rumors that billionaire hedge fund founder Wolfgang Templeton, who’s retired to Sand Creek Ranch, is heading a murder-for-hire ring whose soldiers seem to include Nate, Joe agrees to go despite his reluctance to leave his family yet again. Nor is he crazy about the cover story that he’s just bringing Medicine Wheel County Game and Fish Warden Jim Latta some pheasants to release into the wild and helping Latta get Templeton’s permission to establish several public walk-in areas in Sand Creek. No sooner has Joe met Templeton and peddled his cover story than he realizes that Sheriff R. C. Mead, Judge Ethan Bartholomew and Latta himself are all protecting poachers like Bill Critchfield and Gene Smith. As the killers continue to take out richly deserving targets—“Go do some good” is their mantra—Joe effortlessly finds ways to get under Latta’s and Templeton’s skin and then struggles to reap the whirlwind. Meanwhile, Joe’s ward, April, takes up with a possible rapist, and his older daughter Sheridan wonders if a creepy loner in her dorm is about to shoot up her campus.
Suspenseful yet routine, with oversized bogeymen who seem more menacing than they really are, ethical dilemmas that dissolve under pressure and an ending that tests your tolerance for coincidence. Below average for this splendid yet checkered series.Pub Date: March 11, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-399-16076-9
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: Feb. 19, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2014
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