An Expensive Education

Nick Cordero gets to show off a couple of nifty foreign accents--one Scots and one African--in this spy novel, but regrettably those episodes are too brief to compensate for an otherwise lackluster performance. His delivery is earnest enough, but he doesn't sound interested in finding the crannies of characterization that would make McDonell's cast come alive. The novel raises the question of whether the leader of a group of Somalian freedom fighters is a hero or a monster as barbaric as his enemies. Those trying to discern answers are an American intelligence agent, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, and an African national studying at Harvard who is left wondering who killed his family. If only Cordero had managed to breathe life into them. M.O. (c) AudioFile 2011, Portland, Maine

April 13, 2009
McDonell's third novel, a story of the messy consequences attendant upon a rogue American operation conducted against a Somalian freedom fighter, introduces a spy who could have easily walked off the pages of le Carré's better works. An American agent and recent Harvard graduate, Michael Teak has been assigned to deliver money to a band of east African freedom fighters led by local hero Hatashil. But while they're meeting, the village is decimated by a missile strike. Immediately, a mysterious story hits the wire, claiming Hatashil's men massacred the villagers. The news coincides with the Pulitzer Prize being awarded to a Harvard professor, Susan Lowell, whose book celebrates Hatashil. As Teak tries to come to terms with his own apparent expendability, Lowell fights vilification when a video that purportedly shows her pledging to kill for Hatashil surfaces. Meanwhile, an old Agency hand, Alan Green—Harvard alum and godfather to Teak—ties the stories together with his nefarious black world maneuverings. Teak is the most attractive fictional spy in quite some time, and even if the Harvard subplots feel too self-indulgent and insidery, one hopes this isn't Teak's only appearance.