Nelson DeMille: The Cuban Affair

Is there really a Cuban thaw?
In his first new book for a couple of years Nelson DeMille introduces us to a new character, Daniel 'Mac' MacCormick, and a new country outside the US and the Middle East - the enigmatic Cuba.

Mac is living a good life running fishing charters off Key West, Florida but his finances are slim. He is approached by a Cuban-American Miami lawyer called Carlos with a staggering $2 million offer to run his boat into Havana and smuggle out a treasure of cash and documents hidden from the Castro government during the revolution. The cash was owned by the family of a beautiful Cuban-American woman named Sara Ortega.

The offer is too good to refuse, but the risks are enormous as despite the "Cuban Thaw" the country is still a police state where informing is part of normal life. Conditions for enemies of the state are hideous and if Mac or Sara are caught nobody can help them.

They join an American university group cultural tour of Cuba, totally organised and brainwashed by the Cuban authorities. They start to get to know one another and plan how to retrieve the treasure under the eyes of the ever-present secret police.

Mac has some similarities to DeMille's best character John Corey. He is glibly but not as sarcastically humorous as Corey, a ladies man, a rule breaker and a risk taker. That combination makes him a dangerous friend to have in Cuba, especially to a beautiful woman.

While this is a reasonable thriller it is nowhere near the best of DeMille's books. The best aspects were a detailed glimpse of Cuba today, an anachronistic poor communist regime living within a few miles of one of richest "democracies" in the world. DeMille paints a picture of a rotting paradise where the regime has little interest in a thaw that would take away their power.

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.

Nelson DeMille: The Lion

The Lion stalks its prey
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.

Asad Khalil (aka "The Lion"), is a ruthless Libyan terrorist who menaced ex-NYPD cop John Corey and his wife, FBI agent Kate Mayfield, and planned a major US catastrophe in "The Lion's Game".  At the end of that book Khalil told Corey "I just wanted to say good-bye and to remind you that I will be back....I will kill you and kill that whore you are with, if it takes me all of my life.” This time Khalil is back in the US planning to avenge those who killed his entire family in a bombing run over Gaddafi's compound in Libya, and everyone who stopped his plans last time.

Kate and Corey are both with the federal Anti-Terrorist Task Force. To destress they go sky-diving together (Corey reluctantly). This book has a fantastic adrenaline filled description of a sky dive gone wrong - sabotaged by Khalil . The book is worth reading for these scenes alone.

Corey then gets caught up in a chase to find Khalil before he can kill again and carry out another catastrophic attack. The chase is a very personal one with both Khalil and Corey tracking one another, but the Lion seems to have the upper hand most of the time.

I really enjoyed this page-turning and exciting John Corey adventure. Corey still had plenty of obnoxious quips, mainly pretty racial ones about Khalil involving camels and towel-heads, and about Khalil's mothers affair with Gaddafi. IMO they weren't up to the standard of those in previous and later books in the series.

This was a revisit as I had read this book when it was published a few years ago. It didn't disappoint.

Nelson DeMille: The Lion's Game

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Nelson DeMille is one of my favourite authors and I am revisiting some of his books, which is giving me great pleasure. To my surprise I didn't realise that I had missed reading "The Lion's Game" when it was first released around 2000 - I got it mixed up with the more recent John Corey book "The Lion" when he takes on both the (same?) terrorist called The Lion and rogue elements at the CIA.

Corey retired from the NYPD after "Plum Island" but to combat boredom is now back in harness, amazingly with the FBI, which he always had problems dealing with in the past. This time he is a consultant with the Federal Anti-Terrorist Task Force in New York with the Middle Eastern section.

Corey is still at his wisecracking best which doesn't endear him to some colleagues, including initially his FBI "mentor" attractive, single agent Kate Mayfield. Corey soon bores of inactivity and applies to move to the IRA section in the hope of more action.

But more action than he needs comes his way when he waits at secure facilities at the airport for a Libyan defector, Asad Khalil who is being brought under FBI guard to the US for questioning. The Boeing 747 he is travelling in loses radio contact and lands automatically. Corey is one of the first to board the plane and finds over 300 people, including the pilots are have been gassed and the defector is missing.

Khalil (nickname "The Lion") escapes from the plane and goes on a trail of violence across the US in revenge for the death of most of his family in the bombing of Libya in 1986. Corey and Mayfield track down Khalil when others are sidetracked by a staged assassination suggesting that the Lion is in Germany.

This is a fast action and very believable terrorist thriller written before 9/11. The story swaps between Khalil's Libyan background and his US killing spree to Corey and Mayfield's chase to stop him (with a blossoming romance on the way).

All in all this is one of DeMille's best books and I am now searching the rest of his books to see if there are other gems that I have missed. Highly recommended.

Nelson DeMille: Plum Island (John Corey)

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From time to time I revisit an early book in some of my favourite series to see how they have stood the test of time. Plum Island is an early book in Nelson Demille's John Corey series and when it was released it knocked John Grisham off the top of the US bestseller lists and held the no.1 spot for five weeks. I have just read and enjoyed "The Panther", the latest John Corey adventure and wanted to see how the character had evolved over time.

In "Plum Island" Corey is still a NYPD homicide detective and is staying at his Uncle's beachside house on Long Island recovering from three, almost fatal, gunshots in the course of duty. His neighbours, Tom and Judy Gordon, biologists who worked on Plum Island, the site of animal disease research for the Department of Agriculture, are murdered and Corey is hired by the local police to consult on the murder investigation. A smart and attractive detective Beth Penrose leads the team.

Inevitably the investigations focus first on the possibility that the Gordon's were involved in selling viruses or vaccines to terrorists. The investigation team gets packed with FBI and CIA agents tripping over themselves to prevent a life-threatening tragedy.

Corey quickly dismisses the Plum Island disease connection and works on his own to look at unusual things in the Gordon's lifestyle which is well overspent. They have a rarely used but very expensive speed boat with a missing ice-chest, and recently purchased an isolated block of land on the beach-side that can't be developed. He also looks at their membership of a local historical society and meets and is instantly attracted to the president of the society, Emma Whitestone.

Corey is still full of smart alec wisecracks, but IMHO they are better in "The Panther" as he matures. Most people are disarmed and annoyed by his attitude which makes him look a bit idiotic - but it really is a technique to keep people off balance so they don't realise how smart he really is.

I enjoyed revisiting this early Demille which has an interesting and somewhat unusual plot. The characters are well crafted, and the plot moves around and around, finishing with an exciting but somewhat unbelievable boat chase.

On balance I enjoyed "The Panther" slightly better which I gave 5 stars. This earlier book is a good read, but slightly lengthy and the plot is a bit unbelievable so I gave it 4 stars.

My favourite Demille book is still "Word of Honor", which IMHO is one of the best novels about the Vietnam war.

        

Nelson DeMille: Word of Honor

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Best DeMille, Best Vietnam novel
I have been a Nelson DeMille fan for ages and for a long time this book has been my favourite. I read it when it was released and then chased it down in a second-hand book-store because I needed to refresh my memory of a book that I found difficult to forget. Some time soon I hope to find a Kindle version at a mark-down price that allows me to add it to my Kindle Classics collection of my most memorable books.

This book described the Vietnam war and the military and moral challenges faced more realistically and understandingly than any other Vietnam novel I have read. It showed the dangers and moral challenges US and Allied soldiers had to address daily and how long term exposure to the brutality and the hidden and unknown enemy could change moral and human values in an instant. It exposed these things through the eyes of a character who tried to do his duty honourably but was put into a position by his platoon where he had to live with his decisions for the rest of his life.

Ben Tyson was a good man, and led a good life after Vietnam. But what happened sixteen years ago when Ben Tyson was a lieutenant in Vietnam and the men under his command committed a atrocity - and together swore never to tell the world what they had done - eventually came back to haunt him.

I tried to avoid reading novels about the Vietnam War but read this one because it was written by Nelson DeMille. The book left me emotionally scarred by what Tyson faced, both in Vietnam and in later life when the incident unfolds in court and you had to try to understand what really happened that day and how Tyson and his men reacted. It was a long book of nearly 800 pages and towards the end I was so engrossed I decided to read it on a bus ride to work (normally a recipe for travel sickness). I can still remember how I teared up duirng the finale and hoped that my fellow passengers didn't notice my reactions.

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A Vietnam nightmare continues
Nelson DeMille has written a very short but complete chilling novella about an infantry patrol in Vietnam that went frighteningly wrong when they were targeted, one-by-one by a very clever sniper. The sniper is so clever that not only were both radio operators the first kills, but the second shots hit the exact spot to render the radios useless so they could not call for backup.

The really chilling part of the story is that the platoon leader finds out that the sniper is a woman, who is able to kill whoever she chooses, leaving the platoon leader for last.

Nelson DeMille saw combat in Vietnam as an infantry platoon leader and this comes through clearly in this short novella. DeMille is one of my favourite authors, who wrote "Word of Honor" which IMHO is the best novel about the Vietnam War (and is still my choice as his best novel).

Only today I read this quote about war in a newspaper - "The horror of it, the pain of it, the suffering of it. People just don't understand unless they've been through it." DeMille has been through it, has never forgotten his experience and this shows through in this short story.

Nelson DeMille: The Book Case

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A morning with John Corey NYPD
You need to be a skilled author to write a good Novella or Kindle single. With "Book Case" DeMille has shown his skills in writing a short detective novella that comfortably completes an accident/murder investigation in less than 50 pages.

We meet John Corey again in his days in NYPD when he is called from his breakfast coffee to investigate whether the death of a bookseller when a bookcase falls on top of him is accidental or murder. During the investigation Corey still has time for some of the dark wisecracking humour of his latter life (especially recently in The Panther):

* "The New York Times would say ...'Killed by the books he loved".
* "Can your driver get me a ham and egg on a roll?" "Sure, do you want a Lipitor with that?"
* "My wife thought that cooking and ....ing were two cities in China."

I found this short book very satisfying because DeMille didn't rush things but seemed to cover every base and John Corey wrapped up everything before lunchtime.

Nelson DeMille: The Panther

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Top class, intelligent, realistic and amusing terrorist thriller
This is one of the most intelligent, realistic and surprisingly amusing terrorist thrillers I have read this year. I have been a fan Nelson DeMille's books for a long time and "The Panther" will be one of the more memorable of his books. It also marks the return of Paul Brenner, well known to many of you as the investigator in "The General's Daughter. Brenner and Corey make a formidable combination.

In "The Lion" John Corey, former NYPD Homicide detective and special agent for the Anti-Terrorist Task Force, with the help of his partner and wife Kate Mayfield, killed 'The Lion', a notorious Libyan terrorist. They also stopped a plot by rogue elements in the CIA for a nuclear Armageddon of Muslim countries. Because of their success with the Lion, Corey and Kate are asked by the ATTF to become bait for "The Panther", a feared and brutal al-Qaeda terrorist leader in Yemen. What is realistically scary is that The Panther is a second generation, well educated and very intelligent American citizen of migrant Islamic parents, who becomes a terrorist when he is dismayed with the differences between Western and fundamentalist Islamic values. What is even more scary to Corey and Kate is that they find that the project is masterminded by the CIA.

Some people might find Corey's observations and inimitable humour irrelevant and annoying, but I love them as it helps to take the strain off what could otherwise be pretty tough reading. Corey is at his best and most amusing in this book:

1. Shit happens but in Yemen it happens hard. In Yemen even the good guys are bad.
2. The Yemenis have the highest birth rate of any Arab country ..... so something was happening when the veils came off.
3. "Zamo is also a martial arts expert."  "You draw soldiers?"
4. "Where's Mohammed?" "Getting fitted for a suicide belt."
5. "How is he?"  "Bullet passed through his brain. No damage."

For thriller fans this book has a bit of everything - blackmail, corruption, kidnapping, assassination, bombs, gun-fights, drones and hellfire missiles, all laced with large doses of double and triple-crossing. The book is mostly set, very realistically, in Yemen, one of the most remote and undeveloped third world countries. DeMille's well researched descriptions of Yemen are memorable and it is easy to see why al-Qaeda can have a refuge and strongholds in this country and similar ones in the Middle East and sub-Saharan Africa. Many years ago I visited Aden on a passenger liner and even with such a short visit I agree with Corey that "If the earth had an anus it would be located in Yemen".

I gave the book 4.5 stars (marked down because it was a bit lengthy and slow in the early stages) but rounded it to 5 stars because it really was a good read.