CIA agent John Wells is pretty deep undercover. He’s immersed himself among the mujahedeen of Afghanistan, gone to fight for Muslims in Chechnya, converted to Islam, and done what no other agent has been able to do: infiltrate al-Qaeda to the point that many of the terrorists believe he’s on their side. He might have done too good a job, because after failing to provide an alert about 9/11, the CIA isn’t exactly sure what side he’s on. Thank God for that, because if the situation wasn’t as totally f’ed up, we wouldn’t have THE FAITHFUL SPY.
Now, the title sort of gives away Wells’ disposition, but Alex Berenson gives us enough twists and turns to leave the rest a mystery. Wells finds himself being sent back home by al-Qaeda’s leaders to join a cell of terrorists planning the next disaster. Wells is determined to make amends for what he sees as a personal failure on Sept. 11, 2001, but the interdepartmental bureaucratic morass that is the U.S. intelligence community doesn’t trust him, and the terrorist cell’s leader won’t show his hand until the end game. So Wells, with sparing help from a sympathetic CIA agent, is forced to walk a tightrope between his cover and his country to avert the mother of all disasters.
By day, Berenson is a reporter for The New York Times, and he uses a fly-on-the-wall mentality to great effect throughout THE FAITHFUL SPY. Where lesser writers use every expository window (but a limited supply of adjectives) to hit readers over the head with the fact that the bad guys are, in fact, bad, Berenson lets the villains indict themselves through their words and actions, and trusts that his audience will come to the right conclusion. It’s refreshing, actually, to see this kind of super-thriller treat its readers like adults.
That’s not to say that this SPY is deep. In fact, aside from a couple of detours, the plot – unlike this sentence – is solidly straightforward. THE FAITHFUL SPY is a surgical strike of a spy thriller, sort of what you’d get if you took, say, CLEAR AND PRESENT DANGER, stripped out the pages upon pages of political exposition and simple-minded descriptives, and added a likable protagonist. It’s ready-made to become a summer popcorn flick, and sure enough, the rights have already been optioned. More power to him.
Berenson has managed to rise above today’s crop of DA VINCI clones and necromantic Ludlumites and offer up a smart, thrilling contemporary novel that happens to feature spies, terrorists, weapons of mass destruction and nice, big explosions. What more do you want? –Ryun Patterson
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