Industrial/governmental spy thriller at its best!
920249
Great characters ... totally engaging.  The dialogue and discord among the central "team" of characters created an interesting conflict.  Consequently, both the story itself and the players' personality issues (or perhaps I should say, disorders) created a wonderful 2-prong story.  I was sorry to reach the last page.
2756442
Excellent reading that captures the essence of spies in our midst!
1292162
What a great book! I love a good "techno thriller". Tom Clancy and Dan Brown have kept me up many nights when I should have otherwise gone to bed, and I have to say that Daniel Kalla's first offering had the same effect!

Kalla's realism in dealing with an all too possible bio-terrorism threat was intriguing. The plot line was fast moving, but detailed enough to keep it rooted in fact. The characters are developed nicely, there are no "leaps of faith" when it comes to the relationships developing.

The ability to run several different plots at the same times, in the style of Clancy is impressive. Following the Dr's from the WHO, the Terrorists, The Cairo Police Dept., there is a level of complexity and detail that only the most experienced authors seem to be able to develop.

I greatly look forward to another offering by this Dr. turned Author. I believe that someone new has stepped in to fill the shoes of Tom Clancy after the unfortunate demise of Jack Ryan.
1924031
Mark de Castrique's standalone thriller is fast-paced and absorbing, filled with hair-trigger action and cross after double cross. With the rise of computers, information warfare is "where it's at," and the need for a super computer with moral parameters is a must. I grew up on Sci-Fi movies about computers taking over the world and making Orwell's 1984 look like a walk in the park, so I definitely found The Singularity Race to be an interesting read.

Normally I am a character-driven reader, and de Castrique's characters do not disappoint-- from Rusty Mullins to Dr. Li and Peter Wang to Brentwood the eccentric billionaire; however, I do think the story could have used a bit more about the computer that was being built. It stayed a bit too much in the shadows when it could've given the book more substance.

If you like your mysteries and thrillers with a bit of science fiction, I think you should give The Singularity Race a try.
573630
This novel kept my attention riveted throughout. Undoubtedly, this is one of the best spy thrillers I have ever had the pleasure of reading.
Judson paints vivid pictures with words that have been very meticulously chosen.
I'd rank this piece with the masters of spy fiction: LeCarrie, or Clancy.
This could be a very compelling movie in the right hands.
Outstanding!
220409
This book was full of action!  I like a good espionage thriller and this one delivers.  Theo Cage develops the characters so that they feel real and I felt empathy for the "bad guy" enforcers as well.  It felt like there was a back story to the characters that I would like to know more about.  While I was given a free copy of this book from The Library Thing in exchange for an honest review, this is a book I would have picked up to read if I saw it on a shelf at the airport.  Action-packed and fast-paced!
1901048
Cold War espionage brings together old enemies and dubious allies. British M15 head Spencer joins forces again with CIA agent Stein and Scotland Yard head Garvan to unravel a dense web of espionage involving Russia, Germany, England and the U.S. In the aftermath of WWII, tense relations between former enemies and dubious allies fuels a story full of suspense and action, deftly showing the complex ties in the intelligence communities. Several strong, well-drawn characters enrich the experience, notably the former Nazi-now U.S. scientist for NASA, Zimmerman, and the seductive yet volatile German double agent, Joyce. Hidden agendas drive the actions of several characters, keeping readers guessing about what is true and what are the ulterior motives. The inside look given into workings of British intelligence is fascinating, as well as the continued lethal presence of German and Russian spy networks using undercover tactics to accomplish their goals. Duty and betrayal, revenge and compromise, love and suspicion play out in London of the sixties, with a surprising twist at the end.
3846312
I  haven't enjoyed a spy thriller this much in ages. It was just so good, The plot grabs you and just doesn't stop. Rarely am I surprised, and Bauer managed it repeatedly in this book.
And managing to slip in the romance - yes, please! Seriously, I'd love to see this made into a movie. It's too bad I can ONLY give it 5 stars. I highly recommend it
3665848
The best thing you can say about an espionage thriller is to wonder aloud who would play the main character in the movie version of the novel.  If you want to see the movie version of a thriller, then you know the book got all the important stuff right. The Deadfall Project is terrific thriller in all of the right places.

Complicated leading man who is in it for love of country, fighting to save the world? Check, yeah we got that. Drop dead good-looking female partner? Yeah, we can check that one off too. Interesting international locales? Sure, that too.  A plot that is as exciting as piloting a fast car with faulty brakes down a steep mountain pass? Let's check that one off too.

So let's get back to who would play the leading character Grey Stark, a CIA agent put out to pasture in France for a mistake that he made during the Cold War? My money is on Liam Neeson.  A few years ago, Harrison Ford might have been an ideal choice, the only choice really, but he never projected the vulnerability necessary to pull off the Grey Stark character.  Throughout The Deadfall Project, we find out that Stark's better days are behind him.  Most espionage writers would not have had the guts to create a main character who is, frankly, too old for the job.

One of the problems in reading Robert Ludlum or Clive Cussler novels is that the alpha male is just too damn perfect, the kind of guy who could kill a Siberian tiger before breakfast after a long night of drinking and debauchery. John leCarr had it right, depicting ordinary men playing mind games for world domination.

leCarr's trump card in the espionage thriller writer vein has always been his ability to write about the tradecraft, the way spies to the things that they do, the everyday things. Brett James gets all those things right in The Deadfall Project, which makes his characters so much more believable in the multi-continent action more realistic than the cartoonish master spy characters who populate modern movie fare.

To be sure, James slips with a few lines and clichs in The Deadfall Project that make you realize that he has a little way to go before matching leCarr at his best, think of the Smiley trilogy.  But really, LeCarre was the master that stuff and to even be mentioned in the same sentence as the genre's acknowledged master is an accomplishment.

Since the fall of the Berlin wall, leCarr has stumbled trying to make his writing relevant. What do spy writers do in the absence of a good Cold War? Well for one thing, they could follow James's lead and try to stop war from breaking out in the Middle East.

The beauty of James's perfectly paced plot is that it's all realistic. No leap of faith is necessary. James has you hooked from the opening chapter and holds your attention until the credits roll at the end. Characters go whizzing by, each well-crafted with back story and motives that make them look people you would encounter in the modern espionage world not super villains.

 And critically in this genre, James gets the language right. He has a well-stocked cabinet filled with metaphors and similes destined to please. Plus he can turn a phrase, like when he says of one man that working late to him meant answer questions on his way out the door.

The only real issue that I have a James's writing is that I want to see the sequel.
4442967
Complex, unexpected, well-crafted..an excellent mystery/spy genre work..
2224026
The story contains non-stop action both foreign and domestic! If you like political and security thrillers this is for you! It is easy to read and hard to put down!
3889386
With some other techno thrillers, I have had the feeling that there was a little too much techno and not enough thriller (and I am a techno fan and love air fighters and warships and submarines). I have even put a few of the big-time techno writers aside when the prose seemed more a blur of military acronyms and abbreviations than a story involving plot and characters. Well, I had no problem racing to the finish of this book. Don't get me wrong - there is plenty of techno detail in this book, but it fits right into the flow of the book. It is also explained well and quickly.

Make no mistake: this one's a thriller. As I neared the end, I found myself so focused in I lost track of time and seemed to come up blinking back into the real world once I had finished. To sum up quickly, Japan has declared war on Russia in an effort to control the vast oil field of Siberia and the world nears the brink of nuclear war. What makes this novel work so well, other than a strongly plotted story served up by an excellent writer, is the way the author develops and handles the characters. I found myself turning pages not to discover the fate of "the world" but instead the fate of the individuals Stephen Coonts brought to such vivid life.

My favorite characters were the Russians: men like Captain Pavel Saratov, the commander of a Russian submarine with an Ahab like devotion to duty and mission; Marshall Oleg Stolypin, a classic, Russian man of steel, returning to soldiering one last time; and (perhaps the most interesting of all) Russian Intelligence officer Janos Ilin, cynical and crafty, alone with his brilliance and planning.

I really enjoyed this book and will read more from this author. -Mykal Banta
2231525
A fun spy thriller that combines historical events and the culture of the CIA with fantastic Middle Eastern cultural details, and then mixes in inspired and compelling espionage characters and plot twists that take the reader on an amazing ride!
2491769
Tom Clancy is brilliant and absolutely without equal for developing this complex plot filled with international, political and military action. When I picked this book up, I was glued to to the spot, unable to break from reading it. In this novel, he creates the worst-case scenario of world paranoia, where the two major world powers, the USA and former Soviet Union, play cat and mouse games with military technology and bomb-laden submarines, as the world leaders exchange communications, trying to read between the lines of carefully worded messages, to uncover the truth about a nuclear explosion in Denver, Colorado, the cause of which neither side can readily determine.

This most believable book includes suspense, intrigue, political maneuvering, media manipulation and exploitation, espionage, cutting edge technology, military power and submarine warfare.  Arab terrorists combine forces with East German scientists. Disgruntled political activists, an American-Indian and German, get together under the most auspicious of circumstances to  destablize the world as we know it. The Arab terrorist group uses an East German scientist to redesign a nuclear bomb which was found by chance buried in a farmer's garden in Syria. All the characters are fleshed out, realistic, completely believable. They have personality traits which make the reader look forward to reading about their responses to circumstances that unfold. It is worth learning how this accidental find played into the hands of a terrorist organization who redesigned the nuclear device for their own purposes. It is worth discovering how the aftermath of this explosion creates havoc between the two super-powers. It is worth reading to see the effect this unexpected terrorist attack in Colorado has upon Washington, DC: the President, CIA Deputy Director Jack Ryan, the National Security Adviser, Liz Elliott, and the FBI. This cataclysmic event could unleash waves of destruction throughout the Middle East and the world, discovering its  resolution is worth reading. This roller coaster ride of a novel has so many ups and downs and twists and turns it should not be missed! Erika Borsos (erikab93)
683744
HOODWINK is a well plotted, tightly written thriller that successfully bridges the familiar territory of the cold war with the new world of capitalist realpolitik. It tells the story of a long standing plot by the KGB to destabilise the UK by exposing the extent to which the `establishment' has been infiltrated by freemasons. The action is fast and furious, interspersed with lots of interesting stuff about the practice of freemasonry but, overall, the book doesn't become an anti-masonic polemic. As with all good thrillers the action comes first, but the author also makes some serious points about the corrupting effects of secrecy.

Dominic Torr tells a great story with the authority of someone who knows this world from the inside. I thoroughly enjoyed it and read it in two sittings. By the end I was not sure how much to believe, but I see that as a mark of the author's skill
1013697
Once again, Vince Flynn has set the bar for writing an outstanding spy thriller with 'The Last Man.' The descriptions of the locations are right on the money from the layer of dust on everything to the garbage in the streets...places like Kabul, Islamabad, Bagram AFB, the heat, the flies...it is almost as if you are there! The story reads as if it is taken from the headlines: a missing CIA case officer with devastatingly valuable info has been kidnapped and there is plenty of sniping between bureaucrats as to how to solve this latest crisis. Mitch Rapp's approach, of course, is to start kicking down doors and demanding answers from our so-called 'allies.' This creates problems in the field and at home but our hero plows ahead and saves the day. There are a few interesting curve balls thrown your way as a reader as the story develops but once again, this author doesn't disappoint. This is a very good investment in pure escapism via the printed page!!
2974116
Adam Cassidy makes a profound error in judgment at work at Wyatt Telecom which starts the ball rolling toward corporate espionage, treachery, and outright paranoia.  When made a proposition he can't refuse by Wyatt Telecom's CEO, Adam feels he has no choice but to doctor his resume and apply as directed for a job at the competition, Trion Systems.  Especially since Nick Wyatt has promised him a spectacular felony prosecution and a certain prison sentence if he doesn't do it.
Fast forward, and we find Adam firmly ensconced at Trion and wracking his brain to get the goods on AURORA, Trion's top secret project that Nick Wyatt would kill to get.  And Adam is pretty sure Nick will kill HIM if he doesn't deliver AURORA.  Adam makes friends at Trion, including the company's eccentric founder and, of course, there's a girl, but NObody is who they seem to be as the ingenius plotting and supercharged level of suspense race toward the denouement.
When I hear the words "corporate intrigue", "big business", or "industrial espionage", I'm usually thinking, "Unh-uh, I'm not reading that", but let me tell you, I LOVED this book!  It has every element I look for in a thriller, constructed with finesse and glued with panache.  This one started 2004 out with a bang.