Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Nobody is who they Seem and Everything is a Lie, 2 May 2004
Liz Sansborough has been leading a quiet life, teaching at the University of California at Santa Barbara. She's also has been producing a successful cable show about the cold war for the last couple seasons and now her show is starting to gain recognition. Then someone tries to kill her. She tells her lover Kirk, then calls the cops. However the officer that arrives isn't who he seems to be.Meanwhile in Paris, Liz's identical cousin Sarah is kidnapped and Sarah's husband Asher is shot and wounded during the abduction. Liz comes to believe that Kirk and the cop were CIA watchers, as she's ex-CIA herself and also the daughter of the international assassin known as the Carnivore. All along she thought she'd been making it in the world on her own, but now she feels betrayed when she finds out the CIA had set her up with a cushy life and a wonderful job. She's furious. Anger changes to worry when she finds out about Sarah. She flies to Paris, meets Asher in the hospital. It seems the Carnivore had files about who had hired him and who they'd wanted eliminated and apparently his files read like a who's who of several prominent people. A lot of folks want those files, least of all the secret society known as The Coil. Liz sets of with her younger cousin Simon Childs, sort of a rogue MI 6 operative, in search of Sarah. Then she finds out her boss at the university and her lover Kirk have been killed. Then her CIA minder is killed. Then she finds out they weren't CIA at all. Then Asher is kidnapped too. Throughout all this there has been tremendous pressure on Liz to pick up a gun, both for defense and offense. She's an expert, after all, but she's come to believe that someone has to take the first real stand against guns and gun violence and that someone is her. However when she finally has a chance to rescue Sarah and Asher, she can't, no gun. This changes her mind and we have a new Liz Sansborough. One who is going to shoot first, ask questions later and get to the bottom of who kidnapped her cousin, who wants her father's files, who has them, and just what is this mysterious organization known as the Coil. Reading this book was a thrill for me. It almost seemed as if Robert Ludlum were still alive, so convincingly has Gayle Lynds become at writing about spies, lies, secret societies, rogue agents both good and bad, chases, more chases, shootouts, tradecraft and what could happen to this good old world if we're not careful. Five stars from me for this one. Reviewed by Vesta Irene
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Fantastic Read, 5 Jul 2005
Right from the start Gayle Lynds grips you in a story of espionage, back-stabbing and double-dealing.A really good holiday reading book that will make you start to scan the crowds and feel like you are being watched!
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Action-Packed, Spider-Killing Suspense, 7 Jan 2008
I must say that I absolutely enjoyed this novel and that pleased me, because I just love it when a woman takes on men at their game and does the job just as well, or better. And I mean that in two ways. Ms. Lynds' lead character, Liz Sansbourough does a man's job, a very difficult man's job, just as well, if not better than her male counterparts, without letting any of the usual feminine frailties we usually see in thrillers get in the way. Okay, there was that bit where Liz didn't want to pick up a gun, because she was tired of all the violence in the world, but she gets over it. And then there is Ms. Lynds' novel itself. She could very easily write nice little mysteries, the kind we all know and love to read, but instead she's put herself smack in the middle of a genre that is almost universally read by men, and at a time when about seventy percent of all fiction readers are women, because it seems men are too busy with their faces buried in computer and software manuals. That takes guts.
As a bit of a feminist, I leave this book with a tough question. When my husband, an ex-cop, finished this novel his exact words were, "Honey, I loved this story, she writes just like a man." How should I have taken that? Was it a compliment? From his mouth it certainly was, because he is a longtime reader of spy and Cold War fiction, from Fleming to Ludlum. But from my point of view, well, I wanted to throttle him. However, I understand what he meant, Ms. Lynds has written an action novel that he really enjoyed and, dummy that he is, he can't admit that we women can be every bit as macho as tough guy males. By the way, the other day hubby shouted down from the shower, he needed my immediate aid. Something about a spider that needed killing.
Review submitted by Captain Katie Osborne
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by Gayle Lynds
by Gayle Lynds
by Gayle Lynds
by Alex Berenson
by Stella Rimington
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