Overall, I prefer Driving a Tacoma to Reading About One

The Russian - Ben Coes

Some days the willing suspension of disbelief goes only so far... and today was one of them. Well, actually, the last few days – even I couldn't read The Russian - Rob Tacoma Series, Book 1 in a single day. One of the main reasons I couldn't is that I had to keep stopping to puzzle through author Ben Coes' bizarre word choices and strange notions about science and everything else. 

Coes is the author of a slew of Dewey Andreas novels, none of which I've ever heard of, much less read. FWIW, Andreas makes a cameo appearance in the final chapter as a, to be quite frank, half-assed deus ex machina. More on that later. Coes' bio says he served under two presidents (an intern under Reagan and a speechwriter for a Bush I cabinet secretary). But we're here to talk about the book...

The New Neighbor - It's a Cozy Spy Thriller?

The New Neighbor - Karen Cleveland

If, like me, you read a lot of mystery and thriller novels; you’re well aware of the subgenre of “cozy” mysteries: a protagonist, usually female, stumbles over dead bodies (always free of gore) in the everyday course of business. Cooking is a favorite profession, so are crafting and bookselling. It’s a classic case of willing suspension of disbelief – after all, Crabapple Cove, Maine, is unlikely to have a higher murder rate than Chicago, Bogotá, or Mogadishu. Even with that in mind, though, today’s book is a new subgenre for me; something I call the "cozy spy thriller." Meet Beth Bradford, heroine of Karen Cleveland‘s fourth novel, The New Neighbor.

Agent Zero - Disengage Disbelief Before Reading

Agent Zero - Jack Mars

I don’t review a lot of books these days, although I still power through about three books a week. Every once in a while, though, I get the urge to spit out a few hundred words to share my opinion of some thing I’ve just finished. Sometimes it’s because the book is so good – Peter Heller’s The Dog Stars or Alexandra Oliva’s The Last One come to mind. On the other hand. Some books are just plain lousy, and I get a kick out of lambasting them. There’s the third option, too: the book’s neither great not execrable, but… something about it tells me to sit down and write. That’s what happened with Agent Zero, the first book in a series by some guy who uses the pseudonym Jack Mars.

Anderson Harp's "Retribution": The Spy Novel Comes in from the Cold

Retribution - Anderson Harp

When the Cold War sputtered and came to a halt, espionage thriller writers found themselves scrambling for new plotlines. A few ignored the change and some began writing historical fiction, but many moved the spying from politics to corporate espionage. The problem was simple: a Russian and an American (or Brit) pretty much look the same; but modern conflicts pit westerners against Asian enemies and natives of the Middle East. It’s tough to write a part for Brad Pitt or Tom Cruise as an Arab or Korean without invoking plastic surgery.

But then along came Bosnians and Chechens – Moslems who look less like Osama bin Laden and more like Zorba the Greek; some even with pale(-ish) complexions and light hair. A new breed of spies was born – and Anderson Harp’s man William Parker is at the vanguard.

Gibson blends technology, politics and espionage in a cyberpunk melange

Spook Country - William Gibson

That William Gibson is about as geeky as the average suburban housewife probably comes as a surprise to most familiar with Gibson. He is, after all, the man who coined “cyberspace” two decades ago in Neuromancer, the first book ever to win all three science fiction awards (Hugo, Nebula, and Philip K Dick). Yet Gibson freely admits that he’s no more in tune with what’s inside his monitor or his keyboard than you or I. That’s pretty much on a par with learning that A-Rod has never heard of Cooperstown or that Norm Abram can’t tell walnut paneling from wood-grain wallpaper.

It's Puller vs. Puller in David Baldacci's Latest: The Escape

The Escape - David Baldacci

As Bulwer-Lytton wrote, “It was a dark and stormy night”… The power went off, and the backup generators died, but when the lights came back on there was a single prisoner missing: disgraced former Colonel Robert Puller (USAF) had simply disappeared from what may well be the most secure prison in the world. So how did a convicted traitor in solitary confinement engineer The Escape of the century? There may well be just one investigator who could figure that out and track down Robert Puller: Chief Warrant Officer John Puller, Army CID. Notice those same last names? That’s because the two are brothers.

Puller begins his investigation by learning why his elder brother was serving a life-without-parole sentence in Leavenworth to begin with. It’s espionage, for which he was convicted based on testimony from two of his erstwhile coworkers. Partnered for the nonce with a spook from some three-letter agency or other (a long-legged, tasty redhead, naturally) Chief Puller soon concludes that his big brother had been the victim of a frame job – but by whom? and why? More importantly to we readers, how high will the body count be by the time he figures out how to clear the brother’s name (you can’t call that a spoiler, since you knew when you picked up a Baldacci book how it would come out, didn’t you).