Bloody Sunday

Starred review from May 7, 2018
A simple premise drives bestseller Coes’s excellent eighth thriller featuring indomitable CIA agent Dewey Andreas (after 2017’s Trap the Devil): North Korean Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un is dying of cancer. With less than a month to live, Jong-un decides to go out in a blaze of nuclear glory and take two American cities with him. All he needs is a couple of long-range missiles, and it so happens that his ally Iran is happy to supply them. Dewey has personal reasons for wanting to quit the spy business, but U.S. president J.P. Dellenbaugh talks him into staying on and dealing with the North Korean threat. CIA newcomer Jenna Hartford, on loan from MI6, has designed a mission to poison Gen. Pak Yong-sik, head of the North Korean armed forces, and force him to divulge Korean secrets in exchange for an antidote for the poison. It’s a complicated mission, and in the end only Dewey has the skills, courage, and sheer badass tenacity to pull it off. A ticking clock ratchets up the tension in the best entry in the series so far. Agent: Nicole James, Chalberg & Sussman.

June 1, 2018
Sunday is not the only thing that's bloody in the latest featuring CIA operative Dewey Andreas. He has decided to retire from the business, but, of course, he has to conduct the inevitable one last mission. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is dying of cancer, and he decides he wants to go out in a blaze of glory by launching a nuclear strike on the U.S. A general in the North Korean military tries to work out the final pieces of the operation by striking a deal with Iran. Dewey must force the general to reveal what he knows, but how does he convince this loyalist to spill? By a bold operation that quickly goes south. Continuing to create stories that are both timely and exciting, Coes has written another outstanding black-ops thriller that holds readers with believable characters, a charismatic lead, and compelling narrative drive, much in the manner of Alex Berenson's John Wells novels.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)

June 15, 2018

The eighth book in the "Dewey Andreas" series (after Trap the Devil) has an eerily timely setup: North Korean dictator Kim-Jong Un, dying of cancer, wants to attack the United States with a nuclear bomb. He sends his top general, Yong-sik, to Macau to buy long-range missiles from Iran. When American intelligence becomes aware of the impending deal, they recruit CIA special forces operative Dewey Andreas. The mission is straightforward: inject Yong-sik with a one-of-a-kind poison that will kill him within 24 hours. The antidote is hidden back in Pyongyang and will be delivered to Yong-sik if he transmits North Korean military secrets to U.S. intelligence. But things don't go smoothly, and Andreas is accidentally injected with a tiny bit of poison. His only hope: enter North Korea, make his way to a heavily guarded apartment in Pyongyang, and secure the second syringe of antidote. Coes presents Andreas as a conflicted hero whose quest for revenge against his wife's murderers leads him into some questionable territory morally, but he loves his country above all. The appealing combination of tense situation-room action and thrilling combat scenes allows readers to witness both behind-the-scenes intrigue and edge-of-your-seat military operations. VERDICT Readers of military and political thrillers will have a tough time putting this one down. [See Prepub Alert, 12/11/17.]--Nanette Donohue, Champaign, P.L., IL

Copyright 2018 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

June 15, 2018

A new assignment for ready-to-retire Dewey Andreas: in less than 24 hours, scotch an exchange between Iran and North Korea that would have made them both nuclear superpowers and facilitate North Korea's attack on the United States.

Copyright 2018 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.