Despite the flaws, well worth reading—Fesperman’s empathy for his protagonists, struggling to do the right thing, is...
Middle East intrigue swirls around an aid worker forced into a clandestine post-retirement mission—more classy suspense from Fesperman (The Prisoner of Guantánamo, 2006, etc.).
Freeman Lockhart and his wife Mila have paid their dues. The two UN aid workers (he’s American, she’s Bosnian Serb) met during the siege of Sarajevo in 1992, then moved on to equally stressful assignments in Rwanda and Tanzania. Now they’re retiring to their new home on a Greek island, but their first night is interrupted by three spooks (Freeman assumes they’re CIA). They take Freeman to a nearby empty villa. They want him to go to Amman, Jordan, to check out a former colleague, Omar al-Baroody, a Palestinian. Omar has his own operation now, raising money for a hospital. But is it a front? Freeman’s role will be to follow the money trail. He agrees in an effort to protect his wife: In Tanzania, Mila inadvertently caused a bloodbath, and Freeman wants desperately to protect her from this knowledge, but unless he plays ball, the spooks will enlighten her. In Amman he finds a welcoming Omar (Freeman will be his director of programs) but bitter rivalries among his cohorts. Fesperman, who has traveled widely, provides details with an insider’s mastery: The gritty Bakaa refugee camp, a run-in with Jordan’s own spy outfit and hairy side trips to Athens and Jerusalem are all nailed to perfection. Unfortunately, there is a parallel, much less convincing, story line involving a Palestinian-American married couple in suburban Washington. Their daughter has died, a victim of post-9/11 Arab profiling, and the father, a top surgeon, is plotting a spectacular revenge. Omar and Freeman’s handlers recede into the background as the surgeon’s wife, Aliyah, arrives in Amman, pursuing her own agenda. To add to the confusion, bombs are detonated by an unidentified group at three Amman hotels, killing scores. The hokey climax has Freeman confronting the surgeon in Washington.
Despite the flaws, well worth reading—Fesperman’s empathy for his protagonists, struggling to do the right thing, is impressive.Pub Date: March 5, 2008
ISBN: 978-1-4000-4467-2
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2008
Something for everyone: space combat, interpersonal tension, and aliens, ultimately leading to a story about survival.
A heavily armed starship heads into deep space to combat a race of alien invaders.
Australian author Barry (Lexicon, 2013, etc.) made his bones on satires of corporate life before diverging into fast-paced fantasy with his last offering. Seven years later, he swerves yet again into hard science fiction that bears influences from everything from Ender’s Game to The Martian to 2001: A Space Odyssey with a dash of Starship Troopers and the Alien franchise here and there. The title refers to a massive starship, the fifth of its kind, which has been dispatched to find and kill an invasive alien species known to most earthlings simply as “salamanders.” This follows a first-contact skirmish seven years earlier that left its survivors devastated and led Earth’s leadership to develop massive AI–driven ships designed for zero-casualty warfare. While Providence is a big ship, it has a small crew, consisting of commander Jolene Jackson, weapons specialist Paul Anders, life manager Talia Beanfield, and intelligence officer Isiah “Gilly” Gilligan, the civilian tasked to the starship by the Surplex corporation. They’re a diverse bunch, representing a lot of character tropes, from the square-jawed captain to the secretive madman to an unlikely survivor. Their current mission is to go into what the military terms the “Violet Zone,” a communications dead zone akin to Star Trek’s intergalactic nebulas. After a series of successful raids on the salamanders, things go awry when the ship’s AI starts malfunctioning and the enemy grows more tactical, ultimately forcing the crew to the surface of a planet where they’re forced not only to struggle to survive, but also to face their enemy instead of simply nuking them from orbit. (It’s the only way to be sure). Yes, the plot and the technology are lightly derivative of other works in the SF canon, but at least Barry is pinching all the cool stuff from the best influences.
Something for everyone: space combat, interpersonal tension, and aliens, ultimately leading to a story about survival.Pub Date: March 31, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-593-08517-2
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2020
An enjoyable read. Berry’s fans won’t be disappointed.
Holy relics, a salt mine, and treachery feature in this 15th entry in the author’s Cotton Malone series (The Malta Exchange, 2019, etc.).
Former lawyer and American intelligence officer Cotton Malone is now a bookseller who goes to Bruges, Belgium, for an antiquarian book fair. He’s hired by a former boss to steal the Holy Lance, one of the seven “weapons of Christ,” or Arma Christi. That is the price of admission to a secret auction, in which various countries will bid on compromising information about Poland’s president, Janusz Czajkowski. The point? Czajkowski is an honorable man who will not allow the U.S. to build a missile system on Polish soil, and the EU– and NATO-hating U.S. President Fox is one of several people who want the Polish leader out of the way at all costs. “If I wanted a conscience, I’d buy one,” Fox says. Readers will have to pay close attention to suss out the meaning of Czajkowski’s Warsaw Protocol because the author hardly hammers it home. But the story is fun regardless, especially with characters like the smart and resourceful Malone and the Polish foreign intelligence officer Sonia Draga, “a fortress, often scaled and assaulted, but never conquered.” The complex plot leads to a magnificent Polish salt mine (a real place) that’s hundreds of meters deep with nine layers, has hundreds of miles of tunnels, brine lakes people can’t sink in, and lots of tourists. Berry builds suspense nicely, allowing readers to anticipate the violence that eventually comes. To a great extent, the novel is a richly detailed homage to Poland, its culture, and its ability to survive so many invasions over the centuries. The connection between Arma Christi and an unwanted American missile system feels a wee bit iffy, but at least the latter won’t be called the Holy Lance.
An enjoyable read. Berry’s fans won’t be disappointed.Pub Date: Feb. 25, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-14030-2
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Minotaur
Review Posted Online: Dec. 8, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2020
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