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THE SILENT MAN
by Alex Berenson
Putnam, February 2009
416 pages
$25.95
ISBN: 0399155384


Buy in the UK | Buy in Canada

In the realm of espionage novels, there are page-turning action adventures that paint the political background with broad strokes in order to keep things moving smartly along; there are the more nuanced, politically complex and morally ambiguous works of writers like John le Carré who don't let action get in the way of character development or from sketching ethical conundrums in their multiple shades of gray. And then there's Alex Berenson, who wants to do both.

His third novel to feature CIA agent John Wells begins in Russia, where an elderly and terminally ill Kazakh deliberately causes a tanker full of fuel to crash, blocking a highway that a convoy carrying nuclear material to a secure nuclear facility. The delay to the convoy is just one detail in a carefully worked out plan by terrorists to create a nuclear device that will make the 9/11 attack look puny in comparison.

Meanwhile in Washington, John Wells is trying to regain his emotional balance after previous encounters with Islamic fundamentalism have left him with scars and bad dreams. His precarious happiness with former agent Jennifer Exley is shattered when they are attacked and she is gravely injured. He knows the guilty party is an arms dealer he humiliated in the past and he recklessly sets out to seek revenge. The two stories eventually intersect, giving Wells information that puts him on the trail of a group of fundamentalists who are planning to ignite global chaos with the stolen nuclear material.

There seem to be two books in this volume. One closely examines the thoughts and experiences of semi-casual conspirators who get drawn into the nuclear plot, caught up either by happenstance or by conviction, working toward a moment that grows more appalling to them the closer it comes to fruition. The most vivid characters in the book are minor ones, like the down-to-earth Russian who views the Islamic fervor of his comrades with amused contempt.

The other book is driven by action scenes, machinery, and two opponents who are drawn much less vividly. One is a terrorist mastermind whose only defining characteristic is that he's a rabid Islamic fundamentalist. The other is a seasoned CIA agent who is a master of spy craft but who is prone to lose his bureaucratic masters and go it alone. He is so patriotic that when he's at a European bistro he tries to order a Bud. His pig-headedness is not especially effective, but it is principled. During an undercover operation, trying to get information from a Turkish conspirator living in Germany, he pauses to muse, "We'll find you, kill you hot or cold, blow up your houses, or send you to Gitmo for a trial that ends with you strapped to a gurney and a needle in your arm. Doesn't matter. You'll die either way. You can't win. September 11 was a fluke, you surprised us, it'll never happen again." It's as if he stopped the ticking clock to remind us that the good guys are too big to fail. Then as if to prove his point, a suspicious young Muslim demands that Wells takes off his clothes to prove he isn't wearing a wire, and Wells isn't afraid. There's no need for fear, since the man is gay and gapes at Well's attractive body. Later a conspirator, exhausted by sawing through a casing surrounding fissionable material, dreams about it at night and wakes so aroused he couples with his wife, who is equally turned on by thoughts of the bomb.

In spite of unsubtle moments like this, there are many grace notes in this book, including journalistic snapshots of grim outposts of the post-Soviet empire coupled with delightfully complex minor characters rendered in quick, confident strokes. But they clash uncomfortably with storyboarded action scenes and more technological detail than you can shake a slide rule at. It's as if a good espionage story was screen-tested by little boys who asked for more big trucks, explosions, and super-heroes – and unfortunately got them.

Reviewed by Barbara Fister, March 2009

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