Tracers

April 25, 2011
British author Magson stumbles in his second thriller featuring former MI5 agent Harry Tate (after Red Station). A routine assignment to locate Abuzeid Matuq, a Libyan banker who disappeared with a lot of money, leads Tate and Rik Ferris, his partner in tracing missing people, into a series of murders and betrayals, which turn out to be linked to a terrorist act in the prologueâa bombing that takes out a well-guarded target in Baghdad. Time after time, the author brings the reader up short with illogical or unconvincing dialogue or actions. While Tate believes that Matuq is being sought by "the more vengeful elements of the Libyan secret police," when Matuq is fatally shot after surfacing in Norfolk a few pages later, the Libyan's murder strikes Tate as "pointless" and "random," though he knows it isn't. Those aware that YouTube isn't a print Web site will find a character's assertion to the contrary another reason to disengage.

June 1, 2011

Spies spying on spies.

Harry Tate, last seen escaping a Georgian death plot hatched by MI5 agents supposedly on his side (Red Station, 2010, etc.), returns to Blimey and takes up work as an independent contractor tracking the missing. Jennings, a tight-lipped lawyer who may have secret-service connections, pays him to find an Israeli professor, Samuel Silverman, gone to ground. That task hits several roadblocks, including the assassinations of Matqu, a Libyan, and Param, an embezzler and duped philanderer. Even worse, Tate and his pal Ferris, an electronics whiz, pick up two tails, Dog and Carlisle, neither of whom wishes them well. An ill-hidden clue leads to a woman who knows Silverman, knows his real identity and nationality, and indeed was placed in his entourage in Baghdad as a mole for security purposes—a plan that failed when he apparently died in a bombing of his compound. So the chase is on. Cars cut in and out. Buildings are watched and entered. Bullets whiz by. Collateral damage mounts. But by the time Tate realizes Jennings has set in motion unlimited double crosses, the puppet-master has disappeared and there's one more major gun battle and plot twist to be overcome.

Convoluted derring-do best enjoyed by the conspiracy crowd.

(COPYRIGHT (2011) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

Starred review from May 1, 2011
Following enthusiastic reviews for Red Station (2010), the first in the Harry Tate espionage series, Magson keeps the quality high with this outstanding follow-up. Retired from MI5 after a deadly betrayal by his boss, Harry, and his pal Rik, also a former MI5 employee, have gone freelance and now find people for anyone willing to pay for their services. When Harry and Rik are hired to track down a Libyan banker whos fled to England with millions of his employers money, they figure itll be an easy case. But once they locate the banker, things start to get complicated, and the bounty hunters find themselves involved in a frantic race to save an Iraqi man targeted by a trio of assassins intent on finishing their lethal mission. In a double-dealing game where its nearly impossible to separate the good guys from the bad, Harry and Rik have to use every skill from their MI5 days to unravel the tangled story. With high-octane action, steadily building tension, and a plot packed with twists, Magsons second Harry Tate novel suggests the best of Ken Follett or Robert Ludlum but with a touch more substance.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2011, American Library Association.)