What if JFK was supposed to be shot somewhere else before that day in Dallas? That is the basis for Tom Gabbay’s spy thriller, THE BERLIN CONSPIRACY. Through the eyes of former CIA agent Jack Teller, we witness what might have been.
Jack left the company on his own terms and wants nothing to do with them anymore, until they come calling with one last request: A high-ranking Soviet officer wants to cut a deal and wants Jack as the go-to guy. Why Jack? What secrets does this officer want to spill?
Thanks to the novel’s prologue, I thought that one of the surprises was a given, which does not take one thing away from the fun of this book. When Jack does make the meeting – all the time dodging his own kind – he is told that President Kennedy is the target of a high-level assignation plot when he is scheduled to come to Berlin, and as it turns out, the people behind it are some of our own men.
From there, the rest of book has Jack Teller trying to figure out the who’s and why’s of it all, while trying to stick to his own rules. Gabbay’s novel is packed with some nice action sequences that will keep the readers glued. Even when the final moments of the plot come together, you won’t want to put the book down.
The author has been compared to other spy masters like John le Carré. I have to disagree with that assumption, because while this is an enjoyable cat-and-mouse thriller with a dense plot, it never drags, unlike some of le Carré’s overrated work. Actually, the one book that kept popping into my mind throughout the story was Len Deighton’s BERLIN GAME, perhaps because that hero also played the lone wolf card.
THE BERLIN CONSPIRACY – a no-nonsense actioner with none of the padding of other books in its genre – will make you crave more of the same. –Bruce Grossman
