Posts Tagged ‘Jim Winter’

The Wolf at the Door by Jack Higgins

Friday, March 26th, 2010

The Wolf at the Door
by Jack Higgins
Putnam, January 2010, $26.95

Jack Higgins kicks it old school, as in bringing back the Cold War and the troubles in Northern Ireland for the 21st century. In The Wolf at the Door, Higgins’ usual cast of characters, General Ferguson, agent Harry Miller and his ex-IRA partner Sean Dillon, and American agent Blake Johnson, find themselves the targets of several assassination attempts. The group digs deep to find a sleeper cell of the Provisional IRA they suspect may be behind the attacks, but the real cuplrit may be even more dangerous and powerful than they imagined.

Higgins comes from a school of writers who think nothing of making huge historical events and real political figures characters in their fiction, and his cast of heroes has been entertaining readers for 17 novels now. But it is this novel’s “wolf,” Yorkshire-born PIRA veteran Daniel Holley, and his role as the vengeful hunter unleashed on the “the Prime Minister’s private army” that is the heart of this story. By the end, Holley has determined there’s little difference between those who recruited him to kill and the British against whom he’s avenging his fallen comrades. In the end, the reader is forced to agree.

Reviewed by Jim Winter

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Last Snow by Eric Van Lustbader

Saturday, March 6th, 2010

Last Snow
by Eric Van Lustbader
Forge Books, February 2010, $25.99

Troubleshooter Jack McClure returns in this follow up to last year’s First Daughter. In Last Snow, McClure is with the US President in Moscow on the eve of a historic treaty with Russia. But when an American senator is killed in Italy (when he was supposedly in the Ukraine), the President sends McClure to Kiev to investigate. McClure’s job is complicated by the presence of Annika Dementieva, a renegade Federal Security Service (FSB) agent and Alli Carson, the President’s daughter, whom he must keep safe.

Time and again, McClure’s three-dimensional approach to problem solving, which is also linked to his dyslexia, gets them out of trouble. At the same time, McClure uncovers a conspiracy to undermine Ukraine’s sovereignty and involving some in the President’s own inner circle.

Last Snow is one of several recent novels featuring the grandiose theme of a renewed Cold War with Russia. However, the presence of Alli Carson, the titular First Daughter of the previous novel, humanizes the story. Alli is still reeling from the kidnapping and torture she endured in the first installment. Her rather bizarre presence on McClure’s mission gives her an opportunity to face her fears and claim her own identity. That alone raises Last Snow above the current le Carré knockoffs.

Reviewed by Jim Winter

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