The Reykjavik Assignment

October 3, 2016
Lebor’s overstuffed final book in his trilogy featuring United Nations covert negotiator Yael Azoulay (after 2014’s The Washington Stratagem) takes Yale from Istanbul to New York City, where she has to deal with an array of problems, past and present, personal and professional. First off, she’s being followed by operatives from an old enemy, Clarence Clairborne, the head of a shadowy security firm implicated in a recent attempt to assassinate the U.S. president. Meanwhile, a top U.N. official has just been gunned down on the street and another wounded. Suspicion seems to be falling on Iranian agents. Yael is also starting to pick up disturbing rumors about the mysterious death of her brother many years ago in Rwanda. To top it all off, Yael, now 36, is agonizing over her many romantic misfortunes and wondering why she can’t attract a steady lover. Other subplots abound, and many readers will be confused about what to keep their eye on. They may also grow irritated by the author’s overuse of cliff-hangers. Agent: Elizabeth Sheinkman, William Morris.

September 15, 2016
The final book in LeBor's spy trilogy (after The Geneva Option, 2013, and The Washington Stratagem, 2014), starring UN covert negotiator Yael Azoulay, is jam-packed with narrow escapes, triple and quadruple crosses, changes of identity, and changes of scene. A downside to the breakneck pace is that characterization is often left to minutiae like the fact that one character likes Cuban cigars and another sips mineral water at the UN lounge. Azoulay faces threats from several men (the head of a private equity firm as powerful as any nation; a sadistic former lover to whom she is still drawn; and a potential new one, the UN correspondent for the New York Times, of Palestinian heritage, who could easily expose Israeli Azoulay's secrets). The action centers on an assassination attempt on the U.S. president; Azoulay's assignment is to secretly broker a meeting in Reykjavik between the U.S. and Iran. LeBor acquaints the reader with the dangerous, high-stakes world of contemporary negotiation, and he makes the UN exciting again. This is a fine airport read, high on action, great on geopolitical intrigue, with an overlay of romance.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)