This short book tells the story of two once-lovers, Henry Pelham and Celia Favreau, who used to work together as spies. They meet in a restaurant in Carmel-by-the Sea for a final showdown. Most of the action takes place through their discussions of the backstory while having dinner. The central question is who sold out to a Chechen terrorist, Ilyas Shishani, and why, as this action caused the death of a plane-load of people, 120 and some of them children.

The twists in the story are brilliant, and the prose and the writing, in general, are exquisite. On the other hand, as thoroughly as the main characters were portrayed well by the author, I hated who they were, for they were more than flawed; both were terrible human beings. As a reader, I want to, at least, like or identify a little bit with one of the characters in a book.

Plus, the ending of the story was murky. I had to think hard to figure out what happened. Then I researched the word natch to understand what Henry meant by it. By the way, it may mean ‘naturally,’ which doesn’t mean anything as an answer to the question asked of him at the end. As a reader, if I am reading a spy story, I need a clearer ending or at least an ending that, in some way, explains its own murkiness.

the beginning chapters

is Olen Steinhauer, who writes spy novels and is a winner of the Edgar Award and several other awards.

as uncomfortable as I was with the characters and the ending, it is very well written and is full of exciting twists.

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Created Feb 03, 2018 at 5:44pm • Submit your own review...