The Secret Soldier

January 3, 2011
Those who can't get enough post-9/11 novels about a maverick intelligence operative trying to foil yet another Islamic terrorist group bent on cataclysmic mayhem will welcome Berenson's fifth thriller featuring John Wells (after The Midnight House). No longer with the CIA, Wells flies to France to meet a prospective employer, who turns out to be Saudi Arabia's king, Abdullah bin Abdul-Aziz. The king fears that his brother Saaed, the Saudi defense minister, is plotting against him to insure that Saaed's 48-year-old son, Mansour, succeeds to the throne. Saaed's scheming has extended to supporting the gunmen who just shot up a bar in Bahrain popular with Americans. Unable to trust his own people, the monarch asks Wells to find out who's behind the terrorists, a hazardous mission that action-hero Wells readily accepts. The plot unfolds along predictable lines in a story arc that Tom Clancy readers or viewers of TV's 24 will find old hat.

February 1, 2011
John Wells is working freelance, which means that he can choose the jobs he wants to do. It also means that he has to operate without the resources and sanction of the CIA. Here he works for Saudi Arabias aging King Abdullah, whose brother Saeed conspires against himand, by funding terrorists, has unwittingly set the stage for the biggest war yet in the Middle East. Wells and his partner, Brett Gaffan, chase clues in Lebanon and Saudi Arabia as the terrorists pull off two stunning attacks, leaving diplomatic relations strained to the breaking point. Wells isnt as fascinating as he was in his debut, The Faithful Spy (2006), when undercover work chasing Osama bin Laden had led him to embrace Islam. Now his Muslim faith is perfunctory, his command of Arabic mostly a navigational tool. (Indeed, despite Berensons obvious respect for realism, several solutions are arrived at too easily.) But Berenson is still so skillful at setting spycraft against plausible political scenarios, so terrific at creating tension, that hes top-flight even when hes not quite at the top of his game.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2011, American Library Association.)