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WAGES OF SIN
by Stephen Coonts
Orion, August 2004
400 pages
12.99GBP
ISBN: 0752846299


Buy in the UK | Buy in Canada

A CIA employed locksmith/burglar is called upon to guard a Russian archivist defector but finds himself being attacked from all sides, including enemies high in the US administration and so unable to trust anyone. Male protagonist Series characters: Tommy Carmellini, Jake Grafton, Callie Grafton Keywords (I assume this is for the novel rather than the review?) CIA, FBI, burglar, locksmith, arson, politics, intrigue, betrayal, Russia, defector, blackmail, amnesia, corruption, bribery. Location: Virginia, Washington

Stephen Coonts is well known, and rightly so, for his thrillers which range across the world and involve nefarious dealings on a large scale. The author is a pilot -- he joined the Navy many years ago although later he studied law. Thus, anything he writes about flying and the Navy he has learned through personal experience -- well, at least the practical side of things. One trusts he hasn't been involved in any of the strange situations in which his protagonist, Jake Grafton, is so frequently enmeshed.

WAGES OF SIN , while having a small role for Jake Grafton and his wife Callie, stars Tommy Carmellini as protagonist. Tommy is a talented locksmith -- read CIA-recruited burglar -- and while he is more usually employed in work requiring knowledge of the fine art of breaking and entering, he has been ordered to a farm house in Blue Ridge Mountains, Virginia in a different capacity.

There, Carmellini is intended to perform guard duty but when he arrives he is horrified to find it is too late for that. The house is on fire and almost all members of the team intended to be protected by the CIA are dead. The exception he finds is Kelly Erlanger, a woman who was translating the notes of Russian defector Mikhail Goncharov. This man had been an archivist for the SVR, the successor to the KGB, for many years.

Goncharov, in his working life, had been appalled to read of the crimes of the officials of the Soviet Union. While he had been unable to do anything to prevent the crimes or ameliorate the effects of the crimes, he took meticulous notes of everything he had witnessed and read. On his retirement, Goncharov and his wife defected to the West. The archivist smuggled out seven suitcases of his notes which he intended giving to the Americans after he escaped through Britain. Now all but one suitcase of his notes, which was preserved by Kelly Erlanger, has been destroyed.

Carmellini rescues Kelly and seeks to report to his bosses -- unsuccessfully as death seems to strike wherever he goes. Eventually he turns to his old boss and mentor Jake Grafton, who steps in to help. In the meantime, Goncharov, who had managed to preserve his own life but lost his memory in the attempt, is rescued but is, of course, in great danger from the people who organised the massacre in Virginia.

Grafton and Carmellini attempt to discover exactly who are the villains of the piece and are alarmed when the trail appears to lead to important men within the US system of government. The police and the FBI are in hot pursuit of Tommy but why has he been painted as the arch criminal?

The author, in the acknowledgments, places the inspiration for this very exciting tale with the real-life defection of Soviet archivist, Vasili Mitrokhin. It took 12 years before Coonts was in a position to write a fictional account of what might have happened had a Russian archivist escaped to the West equipped with the secrets of many decades of Soviet crimes. It is well for readers of suspense fiction that his dream was eventually realised.

Coonts writes his customary page-turner jammed full of perilous danger for his unfortunate protagonist. The author is a dab hand at sustaining interest and excitement and has turned out yet another work likely to top the bestseller list.

Reviewed by Denise Pickles, October 2004

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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)


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