A homecoming, sort of
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John Wells has been away from the United States and his home state of Montana for a decade. Since 1996, he's been a deep cover agent in Afghanistan for the Central Intelligence Agency. So deep that he leads a band of Qaeda guerrillas and is known to them as Jalal. He's even met bin Laden. John's only message to his Langley CIA controller, Jennifer Exley, was back in 2001.
Now, Wells is going home on the orders of the senior Qaeda leadership. Once there, he'll be expected to assist Khadri, a fiendishly clever and devious Qaeda planner, in carrying out a major act of violence against America.
To the head honchos of the CIA, John is an enigma and not to be trusted. Hell, he even carries around a copy of the Koran and prays to Allah. Now, what sort of red, white and blue American does that? As for Khadri, he doesn't trust anybody much less one born of the Great Satan.
Wells is truly on his own.
Is THE FAITHFUL SPY the best espionage thriller I've ever read? Um ... no. But, as the debut novel from author Alex Berenson, it's exceptional in its scope, presentation, and imaginativeness. It's written with the flair and confidence of a more experienced author. Not since Lee Child's first Jack Reacher thriller, Persuader (Jack Reacher Novels), have I been so impressed. Four stars, therefore, with the expectation that his next one, The Ghost War, will be even better as the Wells and Exley characters gain more definition. Four stars leaves room for the expected improvement.
My single niggle of dissatisfaction comes from the fact that John didn't fully engage my empathy and sympathy as some other fictional protagonists have done in the past even from book one. Child's Reacher and Elleston Trevor's (aka Adam Hall) Quiller come immediately to mind as both personae have endearing subtleties; Quiller had standing instructions with his employer to send roses to Moira in the event of his death, while Reacher doesn't even know how to iron a shirt. I expect Wells to grow on me; we'll see.
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