A captivating spy tale, historically astute and morally nuanced.
In this novel, a newly minted CIA operative is sent undercover to Panama at the height of the Cold War.
When Nick Haliday was a senior in high school, his mother, Margaret, an alcoholic and “profoundly unhappy and ill” woman, committed suicide, a dark moment that weighs on his soul like a heavy stone. Nick’s relationship with his father, Phil, is emotionally “moribund.” After Nick graduates from college, he joins the CIA, a decision meant to anger Phil, a high-ranking official at the State Department who loathes the spy agency. Phil ominously warns Nick about his unscrupulous new employer: “ ‘Here goes: Don’t believe a goddamn thing the agency tells you. If you assume they’re lying to you each step of the way, then you’ll come out in one piece. Otherwise,’ he shook his head, ‘you’re cooked.’ ” In 1958, the Cold War is well under way, and the agency is obsessed with Marxist agitation against American interests all over the globe. Nick is sent to Panama disguised as an English professor—a “goddamn left-wing, beatnik, commie American”—in order to infiltrate insurrectionist groups intent on a liberation from American occupation and looking to wrest control of the Panama Canal, which includes the Miraflores Locks. Yocum furnishes a chilling depiction of the CIA’s remorseless zealotry, a macabre combination of moral nihilism and jingoism. Nick falls in love with one of his students, Maria Santiago, a “startlingly attractive young woman” involved in protests, a romantic entanglement that complicates both his mission and his commitment to it. The author poignantly captures the miasma and moral bewilderment of a tumultuous time as well as the despair that leads Nick to become a willing participant in deeds of which he will never be proud. This is a mesmerizing story, full of artistic restraint and yet unflinching.
A captivating spy tale, historically astute and morally nuanced.Pub Date: Dec. 1, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-9978708-7-9
Page Count: 248
Publisher: KDP
Review Posted Online: Sept. 6, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Intrigue, murder, and vengeance make for a darkly enjoyable read.
A woman’s life takes a stunning turn and a wall comes tumbling down in this tense Cold War spy drama.
In Berlin in 1989, the wall is about to crumble, and Anne Simpson’s husband, Stefan Koehler, goes missing. She is a translator working with refugees from the communist bloc, and he is a piano tuner who travels around Europe with orchestras. Or so he claims. German intelligence service the BND and America’s CIA bring her in for questioning, wrongly thinking she’s protecting him. Soon she begins to learn more about Stefan, whom she had met in the Netherlands a few years ago. She realizes he’s a “gregarious musician with easy charm who collected friends like a beachcomber collects shells, keeping a few, discarding most.” Police find his wallet in a canal and his prized zither in nearby bushes but not his body. Has he been murdered? What’s going on? And why does the BND care? If Stefan is alive, he’s in deep trouble, because he’s believed to be working for the Stasi. She’s told “the dead have a way of showing up. It is only the living who hide.” And she’s quite believable when she wonders, “Can you grieve for someone who betrayed you?” Smart and observant, she notes that the reaction by one of her interrogators is “as false as his toupee. Obvious, uncalled for, and easily put on.” Lurking behind the scenes is the Matchmaker, who specializes in finding women—“American. Divorced. Unhappy,” and possibly having access to Western secrets—who will fall for one of his Romeos. Anne is the perfect fit. “The matchmaker turned love into tradecraft,” a CIA agent tells her. But espionage is an amoral business where duty trumps decency, and “deploring the morality of spies is like deploring violence in boxers.” It’s a sentiment John le Carré would have endorsed, but Anne may have the final word.
Intrigue, murder, and vengeance make for a darkly enjoyable read.Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-64313-865-7
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Pegasus Crime
Review Posted Online: Jan. 11, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2022
Falls short of Crichton’s many blockbusters, but fun reading nonetheless, especially for those interested in the early days...
In 1876, professor Edward Cope takes a group of students to the unforgiving American West to hunt for dinosaur fossils, and they make a tremendous discovery.
William Jason Tertullius Johnson, son of a shipbuilder and beneficiary of his father’s largess, isn’t doing very well at Yale when he makes a bet with his archrival (because every young man has one): accompany “the bone professor” Othniel Marsh to the West to dig for dinosaur fossils or pony up $1,000, but Marsh will only let Johnson join if he has a skill they can use. They need a photographer, so Johnson throws himself into the grueling task of learning photography, eventually becoming proficient. When Marsh and the team leave without him, he hitches a ride with another celebrated paleontologist, Marsh’s bitter rival, Edward Cope. Despite warnings about Indian activity, into the Judith badlands they go. It’s a harrowing trip: they weather everything from stampeding buffalo to back-breaking work, but it proves to be worth it after they discover the teeth of what looks to be a giant dinosaur, and it could be the discovery of the century if they can only get them back home safely. When the team gets separated while transporting the bones, Johnson finds himself in Deadwood and must find a way to get the bones home—and stay alive doing it. The manuscript for this novel was discovered in Crichton’s (Pirate Latitudes, 2009, etc.) archives by his wife, Sherri, and predates Jurassic Park (1990), but if readers are looking for the same experience, they may be disappointed: it’s strictly formulaic stuff. Famous folk like the Earp brothers make appearances, and Cope and Marsh, and the feud between them, were very real, although Johnson is the author’s own creation. Crichton takes a sympathetic view of American Indians and their plight, and his appreciation of the American West, and its harsh beauty, is obvious.
Falls short of Crichton’s many blockbusters, but fun reading nonetheless, especially for those interested in the early days of American paleontology.Pub Date: May 23, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-06-247335-6
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: March 6, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2017
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