A good day’s work from an old pro.
Old bones and old grudges in contemporary Havana.
In this, his 20th, DeMille (Radiant Angel, 2015, etc.) deftly drops Daniel "Mac" MacCormick, captain of The Maine, a 42-foot sport fisherman out of Key West, into a storm of competing visions of Cuba’s future. When a trio of Cubans and Cuban-Americans, Carlos Macia, Eduardo Valazquez, and the lovely Sara Ortega, offer him a small fortune to participate in a scheme to recover documents and cash hidden in a cave during the Cuban Revolution of 1959, Mac is tempted and succumbs to both avarice and lust for Sara. The plan is to infiltrate Mac and Sara into Cuba as part of an educational tour under the auspices of Yale University (and some fun is had at the expense of the Elis). The two will break away from the tour, recover the money and documents, meet The Maine, which will be participating in a fishing tournament down the coast, and escape. Relations with Cuba are in flux; the exile community rejects the notion of a “Cuban Thaw,” and the security services in Cuba also resist the idea. But some in the U.S. promote a lessening of tensions, and some in Cuba itself understand that the nation cannot survive without a quick infusion of money and that the best hope is U.S. tourist dollars. The real poverty of Cuba is clearly described, as are the conditions of the infrastructure and the social climate. In spots the narrative seems to slog through discursive observations, but they are mostly informative and worthwhile, and then the plot picks up energy again. Though Mac and his mate Jack Colby seem to share a somewhat adolescent obsession with “getting laid,” they are stout fellows in a fight, and the thriller charts a satisfying course.
A good day’s work from an old pro.Pub Date: Sept. 19, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-5011-0172-4
Page Count: 464
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: July 16, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2017
A page-turner with the kind of small details that lend unquestionable authenticity.
A spy dealing with personal trauma is called back into action to stop the use of a dangerous chemical weapon.
A former Army helicopter pilot and FBI special agent, Bentley delivers his debut novel with the introduction of Defense Intelligence Agent Matt Drake. After an op in Syria went sideways and his best friend was maimed, Drake walked away carrying heavy emotional baggage. Haunted by those he couldn’t save and in self-imposed exile from his wife in order to protect her, Matt wants nothing to do with his old life at the Defense Intelligence Agency. But when he's brought back under duress to help stop terrorists from using an untraceable chemical weapon against Americans, Drake feels a lurking sense of obligation, and before he knows it he's back on duty. The seeming purity of Drake’s call to serve is contrasted with the petty political infighting within the highest reaches of government. A chief of staff for the president is angling to jam a CIA director who has political ambitions of her own, and Drake’s mission falls right in the middle of this elaborate political scheme. While the flow of the story seems most natural during the shoot'em-up action scenes, this is a novel with an emotional core, and that may be what makes it stand out from other thrillers of a similar ilk.
A page-turner with the kind of small details that lend unquestionable authenticity.Pub Date: March 3, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-0511-9
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Berkley
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2020
Complex, epic, and rich in historical detail—an uplifting story of finding friendship behind enemy lines.
During World War II, five Americans head to Nazi-occupied France on a secret mission for the OSS, but only four return.
Twenty years later, OSS case officer Alistair Renault finds a clue in a history book that the missing member of their group might have survived after all. He flashes back to the beginning of the operation, when he first assembled the team he dubbed “Dragonfly”—three men and two women who were chosen for their special skills and secret connection to the war. The five recruits bond in training, but once on their mission, they split up to avoid being caught by the enemy and communicate by making marks on a mural painted on the courtyard wall of a convent. Their cover stories offer surprising glimpses of daily life for the French and their German occupiers. (And a character list at the beginning of the book helps keep their real names and aliases straight.) Christoph Brandt, a track-and-field coach who couldn’t be drafted to the American military due to his missing thumb, learns firsthand how the Hitler Youth are taught to bully. He ingratiates himself with the Nazis by tutoring the son of the head of the Abwehr German intelligence agency in France. But the Nazis won’t be fooled for long. Civil engineer Samuel “Bucky” Barton risks being discovered by Christoph’s old friend from his hometown who betrayed his country to join the Third Reich. Working side by side with the enemy, the Americans are surprised to learn that some of the Nazis are not what they seem. Tired, disillusioned, and looking for redemption, they blur the line between friend and foe, giving Dragonfly both a way into the organization and a way out of the war.
Complex, epic, and rich in historical detail—an uplifting story of finding friendship behind enemy lines.Pub Date: July 9, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-53873222-9
Page Count: 576
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: April 13, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2019
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