Nelson DeMille: A Quiet End / Radiant Angel

John Corey - Professional Terrorist Chaser
This is Nelson DeMille's seventh book in the series featuring John Corey, former NYPD Homicide detective and now a contract agent for the Anti-Terrorist Task Force. I admit that I am a John Corey fan, firstly because he is a great detective character who does it his way and secondly for the really funny and mostly obnoxious quips that he makes along the way.

Corey is posted to diplomatic surveillance of Vasily Petrov, a colonel in the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service posing as a diplomat with the Russian UN Mission. Corey and his new partner, Tess Faraday, follow Petrov to a party the home of a Russian oligarch at Southampton at the north of Long Island well outside the permitted zone for Russian diplomats.

Fearing something suspicious is happening Cory and Tess join the catering staff at the party only to see Petrov and a couple of colleagues mysteriously disappearing from the party in an amphibious boat along with a group of scantily dressed Russian hookers hired for the party.

What is Petrov up to? Is he going to another party or is he up to no good. When Corey discovers that one of the Russian colleagues is a former nuclear scientist he pulls out all stops to find where they are going to and if a terrorist nuclear attack is planned.

In the book Corey uses the term "Radiant Angel" to pass on the message that there is a nuclear threat and used that term as the book title in the US. The title in Australia and the UK is "A Quiet End" which is very puzzling and probably not really appropriate. I have asked Hachette Australia for the reason for the different title but they have not replied.

All in all this was another enjoyable John Corey thriller but IMHO not quite as good as previous ones, especially because it lacked the amusing and constructive tension between Corey and his wife, Kate, an FBI agent who is not featured in this book. Their relationship is strained as Kate is now based in DC and Corey suspects that coincidentally she may be happy that her boss Tom Walsh (who Corey despises but Kate likes) has also been transferred to Washington. Also Corey's smartass quips were not as biting as in prior books.