Mystery/Thriller Book Reviews

Page Two of Three

The Coil by Gayle Lynds
St. Martin's Press, April, 2004
Hardcover, 448 pages
ISBN: 0312301448
Ordering information:
Amazon.com

The Coil
by Gayle Lynds

Ex-CIA agent Liz Sansborough believes she has finally put her violent past behind her. The daughter of the infamous Cold War assassin, The Carnivore, Liz had to pick up the pieces of her life after she lost both her parents and her job, after her bosses found out who her father was. Now a psychology professor at UC Santa Barbara with a popular television show, Liz teaches her students about the psychology of violence. But when her cousin Sarah is kidnapped in Paris and Liz is nearly murdered during her daily jog, she realizes that safety is an illusion and that her past will never really be behind her. The blackmailer's price for Sarah's release is the files of The Carnivore, which someone is using to blackmail prominent and highly placed people. Liz doesn't know where her father's files are, but heads to Europe. She teams up with Simon Childs, an old family friend and MI-6 agent, to save Sarah. But Liz and Simon are up against The Coil, a shadowy organization whose aims are unknown, but whose power reaches into the very highest levels of many world governments.

A sequel to 1996's bestselling Masquerade, The Coil brings back appealing spy Liz Sansborough, a complex woman who was lied to by her own family and whose darkest fear is that she has what it takes to become as ruthless an assassin as her father was. This fear keeps her from picking up a weapon, even as the body count rises around her and she continues to try to rationalize her way out of the violence of the clandestine world she inhabits. Liz's struggles to take the moral high road nearly get her killed, but are believable and interesting, given her unique background. Once she comes to terms with who she is and what she's fighting for (the life of her cousin and her husband), she steps back into her old life with ease.

Personally chosen by legend Robert Ludlum to co-author three books with him, Gayle Lynds certainly knows her way around the espionage world. The Coil's labyrinthine plot moves at a blistering pace, and both the action scenes and the tradecraft are absolutely fascinating. Gayle Lynds has taken the classic Cold War spy novel and, with her own unique style, has updated it for a modern audience. The result is a tautly-written, intelligent and exhilarating thriller.

--Claire E. White

A Death in Vienna by Daniel Silva
Putnam, February, 2004
Hardcover, 403 pages
ISBN: 0399151435
Ordering information:
Amazon.com

A Death in Vienna
by Daniel Silva

Art restorer and sometime Mossad agent Gabriel Allon is happily working in Venice to restore one of Bellini's most beautiful altarpieces when he gets the call from master spy Ari Shamron. Gabriel's old friend, Eli Lavon, the chief investigator of the Austrian Wartime Claims and Inquiries office is near death after a bombing attack. Gabriel has not been back to Vienna since the horrific death of his wife and daughter, but he agrees to investigate the assassination attempt. His investigation puts him on the trail of Sturmbannführer Erich Radek, who goes by the name Ludwig Vogel. Radek is a Nazi war criminal now living as a prosperous businessman in Austria. When Gabriel finally discovers his dead mother's account of what happened to her in a concentration camp during World War II, the case takes on a personal element that changes everything he thought he knew about his mother and his childhood.

A Death in Vienna is the third book in the series which deals with the "unfinished business of the Holocauast," after The English Assassin and The Confessor, which dealt with the complicity of Swiss bankers in the theft of Jewish art and the Vatican's complicity in the Holocaust. The book has parallel tracks: one track delves into the past of Gabriel's mother and Radek, whose job was to erase all evidence of the concentration camps before the Allies arrived at the end of World War II. The present storyline explores the current rise of the extreme right wing party in Austria, which some attribute to the fact that Austria never prosecuted war criminals, but integrated them back into society. There is suspense and action, but there is also a very serious examination of issues that some would rather leave buried (those who claim the Holocaust never happened, for example). Gabriel Allon is a fascinating character with many demons to battle, both real and metaphorical and his struggles and exploits make for compelling reading.

--Claire E. White

Mystery/Thriller Reviews
Page One | Page Two | Page Three

Click Here to Return to the Book Reviews Index

Mystery/Thriller Book Reviews

The Coil by Gayle Lynds

A Death in Vienna by Daniel Silva