Showing posts with label espionage--fiction. Show all posts
Showing posts with label espionage--fiction. Show all posts

Saturday, December 16, 2023

The Partisan by Patrick Worrall


 The Partisan by Patrick Worrall -383 pages

This is a Cold War thriller mostly set in 1961 as tensions between the Soviets and the West seem to be leading to nuclear war. It follows two young chess players caught between opposing intelligence agencies and a former Lithuanian partisan who fought both the Germans and Soviets in World War II and its aftermath. The characters' backgrounds and motivations were interesting as well as the time periods of early 1960s London and World War II in Eastern Europe. 

Monday, February 1, 2021

The Eleventh Commandment by Jeffrey Archer

 464 pages (mass market paperback)

"Connor Fitzgerald has an impressive resume. Military hero. Devoted family man. Servant of his country―as an assassin. Just as he's about to put his twenty-eight-year career at the CIA behind him, he comes up against the most dangerous enemy he's ever faced: His own boss, Helen Dexter.

"As Director of the CIA, Dexter has always been the one to hold the strings. But when her status is threatened by a greater power, her only hope for survival is to destroy Fitzgerald. Meanwhile, the country braces itself as tensions with a new Russian leader reach the boiling point…and it's up to Fitzgerald to pull off his most daring mission yet: To save the world. Even if that means risking everything―including his own life―in the process."  --from the publisher

First, I love Archer's Clifton Chronicles. They are outstanding, and if you like epic, generational stories then you would probably enjoy the series. This book, however, was written like an action movie. The character development and transitions between settings were lacking, imho. I found it hard to follow and engage even though the storyline was interesting. I give it three out of five stars.