President Bill Clinton/ James Patterson – The President’s Daughter

President Bill Clinton/James Patterson – THe President’s Daughter

Matthew Keating wanted to serve a second term as POTUS, but his mission against one of the evilest terrorists went disastrously wrong and cost him the presidency. Now, he is doing more or less nothing apart from fishing and not so much enjoying himself. When his daughter Mel is abducted by IS terrorist Asim Al-Asheed who wants to revenge his wife and daughters, ex SEAL Matt takes it personal. Since the official agencies totally fail to rescue the girl, he decides to become active himself to get her back. He is still well-connected and secretly sets up a small team to do what a father has to do.

The second cooperation between former President Bill Clinton and well-known crime writer James Patterson is a fast-paced mixture of political and spy thriller which also gives deep insight in how the different national agencies work with and against each other. The thriller brilliantly shows that politics can be a nasty business where personal agendas at times conflict with national interests and ethics. Also, since the end of the Cold War, the lines between confronting enemies have become blurred and the world is a much more complex place with several stakeholders all acting and interfering simultaneously.

First and foremost, the novel lives on the protagonist Matt Keating who tries to free his daughter. Even though we first meet him in the role of the president, his former occupation as a member of the US SEALs is a much more formative aspect of his character. When he learns of is successor’s unwillingness of helping to liberate his daughter, he reactivates his knowledge and connections to rescue her on his own. Admittedly, I doubt how realistic this might be, however, it certainly makes a good action-loaded plot. The daughter, too, is a tough cookie, even though raised in a rather comfortable position, she is courageous and has a strong will to survive which gives her more power than was to be expected.

What I found most interesting, however, was not just the war between the terrorist and the USA but how China meddles and how conflicting interests endanger civilians which are nothing more than collateral damage. Ironically, it is a private affair that leads to the downfall of the current president – highly likely in our times.

Great entertainment which surely also works quite well on the screen since it incorporates the core virtues of bravery, persistence, teamwork and love.

Patrick Hoffman – Clean Hands

Patrick Hoffman – Clean Hands

Elizabeth is used to a high working load and stress, but this situation might bring her down. One of her young lawyer’s phones has been pickpocketed and he had neither security nor lock on it – but highly sensitive data on their current case. The best woman to take care of such a mess is Valencia Walker, former CIA officer and fixer of unsolvable cases. Indeed, she and her team can track the phone down immediately, but nevertheless, some blackmailing takes place. While Valencia sets everything in motion to stop any more harm from occurring, Elizabeth wonders why she is doing all this and if she shouldn’t just give all up, not knowing what else there is to come.

Patrick Hoffman’s mystery novel seems to be quite obvious from the start: a young and inexperienced lawyer who is threatened and therefore sells his boss. Then, some young and rather stupid men who are simply lucky and can seize a chance when it presents itself in front of them. Quite naturally, things become a bit complicated and tricky for Valencia and her team and then – you realise that this isn’t the point of it at all.

The story advances at quite some high pace with some parentheses every now and then which provide some more depth and insight and which slow the plot down a bit so that you can take a breath before it regains speed. The number of characters makes it a bit hard at times not to lose the thread, but overall, I can only conclude that the plot is brilliantly crafted and none of what happens could be foreseen from the beginning.

Even though it is clearly fiction and I don’t tend to be prone to believing any conspiracy theories about governments or any agencies carrying out secret missions in the homeland, there are some aspects of the story which at least made me ponder about the probability. That’s what I totally appreciate in a good novel: being hooked from the start and having something lingering in my mind after the last page.

Heidi Perks – Three Perfect Liars

Heidi Perks – Three Perfect Liars

When Laura returns to her job after six month of maternity leave, she expects Mia, who substituted her in this time, to be gone. Yet, the young woman is still there, at Laura’s desk and with Laura’s most valuable customer and: she got a permanent contract. Laura is furious and soon convinced that there is something wrong with that seemingly sympathetic colleague who makes friends with everybody easily. The more Laura digs into it, the more paranoid she gets, neglecting her husband and young son, her mind only circulating around how to dethrone the enemy. Mia actually has something to hide and yes, there was a reason why she rushed to this rural area and wanted explicitly to work in this company. Janie, Laura and Mia’s boss Harry’s wife, on the contrary, is a full time mom and at the moment totally frustrated. It is not just that she has given up a splendid career, something is nagging on her and slowly destroying her marriage. When one evening, the offices burn down, all three of them seem to have had good reasons to destroy the company. But, did they also count on killing somebody inside the building?

Heidi Perks’s mystery is a marvellous story which hooked me immediately and keep me reading on as soon as I had started. Three female protagonists are very different from each other and hard to see through at the beginning. But the more you see them interact with each other, the more suspicious you get and while I was reading, I was constantly shifting sympathies since every piece of information added to the picture and slightly changed it.

At first, I felt compassionate for Laura. Coming back after months at home now struggling with her new role as mother and having a career at the same time. Her husband’s constant criticism – even though completely justified – and having somebody younger and attractive stealing her post while her boss lacked supporting her: I could easily understand why she felt like losing all confidence in herself and increasingly getting obsessed with Mia. I didn’t really like the later at first, mainly due to the fact that she was presented through Laura’s point of view, she seemed like an intruder with evil intentions. Yet, there was also another side which she kept from the office and which told an entirely different story. I didn’t know what to do with Janie, was it just lamenting at a very high level? Having a wonderful family and lots of money, what did she have to complain about? It was herself who suggested giving up her career. She was certainly the character least tangible of the three and her motives of ending her marriage remained quite blurry until the end.

A brilliantly crafted plot with a very female and perfidious fight between the three. There was also something really tragic about the story when the motives were finally revealed which kept me pondering about the fact that how easily you put together an allegedly coherent picture of a person or a situation while you might be totally wrong.

Paul Vidich – The Coldest Warrior

Paul Vidich – The Coldest Warrior

1953 – the Korean War has ended, but the Cold War emerges and the intelligence services’ nerves are frayed. When CIA officer Dr Charles Wilson dies under blurry circumstances, all information is closed down immediately. It will take twenty-two years until his death gets the attention it deserves. He “jumped or fell” from the ninth floor of a Washington hotel and his family is now demanding answers. Jack Gabriel, an old friend of Wilson’s, also an agent himself, starts digging and the deeper he gets, the more coincidental deaths among key witnesses this cases produces. Somebody tries to hide something and Gabriel soon has to ask himself how much he is willing to risk for the truth.

Paul Vidich narrates a fictional story based on the real events of the mysterious death of Frank Olson, CIA employee and biological warfare expert. The author has seen himself what the agency’s policy of secretiveness can do to a family: Olson was his uncle and he could witness the family’s grief at close range.

 “That was the story of the Agency then. We could do whatever we wanted because we were fighting the Soviet Union.”

The CIA killed its own men if need be. What sounds like the plot of a superb spy novel today, was a reality back then. As Vidich recalls, raising the subject at family reunions was a taboo, even though somebody suffered a terrible injustice, everybody remained silent and thus approved of the methods. Reading about the disclosure of Wilson’s/ Olson’s murder makes you oscillate between fascination and abhorrence. A lot has been revealed about the dark sides of espionage and spying, nevertheless, I am still stunned each time I read about how ruthless the business can be and how little a human life counts.

It is remarkable how Vidich manages to transport the story in an entertaining way even though he is that close to the case. A fast paced read that gives much more insight than you could ever wish for.

Mick Herron – The Drop

Mick Herron – The Drop

Solomon Dortmund knows his business; he’s been doing this for so many decades that nothing can surprise him anymore. But observing a classic drop in a café is something that rarely ever happens these days. He is sure about what he has seen and reports it back to Regent’s Park. There, this is not a total surprise since the woman involved is a double agent whom the Germans believe to be their mole with the British. But Hannah Weiss has her own agenda and she knows whom she is working for. When service analyst Lech Wicinski is doing a favour for an old acquaintance, he sets in motion a chain of events that will make himself one of the tragic victims.

Mick Herron’s The Slough House series has won several awards and was shortlisted for many more, among them the Ian Fleming Steel Dagger Award, the British Book Award and the Gold Dagger. “The Drop” – a rather short novella only slightly liked to the series – is the latest instalment of it. Yet, it is much more a classic spy novel than the rest of the series since it has in my humble view a much more traditional setting with double and triple agents and members of the service operating in the field.

There is not much to say about the plot, it is quite straight forwards without any side lines or too much detail about the characters. As a reader, you dispose of information from both sides, i.e. the English as well as the Germans, and thus can observe both services operating. It is common in those kinds of operations that innocent bystanders become necessary victims and thus, also in “The Drop” we see people fall without having made the slightest mistake. The novella mainly serves as a backstory for the latest member of the Slough House team and I liked the quick read a lot for its atmosphere of old-times spy novels.