A review by achoward
The Eighth Sister by Robert Dugoni
3.0
The Cold War is long over for Charles Jenkins, the 60-ish, 6 foot plus, African-American, ex-CIA agent in Robert Dugoni's The Eighth Sister. After walking away from the CIA decades ago, disgusted by an op gone wrong in Mexico, Jenkins has settled into life on a farm in Washington State, with a young son, a pregnant wife(!), a security consulting business on the brink of failure, and a large client routinely late on payments.
Into this mess walks his former chief, offering him an off the books op, with a payment that will take care of his money problems: go to Russia, find out who is killing off the Seven Sisters, Russian women who are American assets, and find the four who have not yet been killed. The problem: none of the Seven Sisters are connected to one another in any way, and they are unknown to one another, so who is killing them, and how does the killer know they are US assets? Is it the rumored Eighth Sister of the title?
Let's pause there for a moment. I'm a fan of good spy novels. The superb Prince of Spies by Alex Gerlis, for instance. In the nonfiction and the best fiction I've read about spies and spycraft, one of the things that has often struck me is just how pedestrian most spying is and how ordinary-looking most spies are. While the eccentric or flamboyant or outed/burned spies and terrible ops get all the headlines and movies, the rest simply do their jobs. Now, knowing these things, and knowing that Russia (and other countries through which Jenkins travels) is predominantly white, and predominantly under six feet tall, I wondered just how Jenkins was "the perfect fit" for this job, and how implausible it would be for him to be sent to essentially gather intelligence, discreetly, having been out of the game for 40 years. Since he was a field officer, he should have wondered this, too, but in the end, the money offer wins out, and off he goes.
What ensues is a cat and giant mouse game, with Jenkins pursued by a very determined FSB (the successor to the KGB) agent, Viktor Federov, through Russia, Turkey, and Greece. To be honest, I really leaned more toward liking Federov a lot more than Jenkins, if only because he seemed much more realistic, and even though he was greedy and unhappy with his job, he had a plan and the will to continue going after Jenkins. Jenkins appears to not have any issues losing sleep or pushing his 60-ish year old body as if he were a 20-year old, or falling right back into field agent work without a hiccup even though he hasn't been in the field for literally decades. At one rather ridiculous point, we are expected to believe that Jenkins has managed to procure a burka to cover his over 6-foot plus body, and no one seems to raise any questions about a supposed woman the size of an NFL linebacker in said burka.
While the spy portion of the story is interesting, even if implausible, the story abruptly changes into a legal drama when Jenkins manages to return to the US to find it looks like his old boss didn't have his best interests in mind. Jenkins turns to the FBI, only to find himself arrested for espionage: there was no op, his old boss says, and he hasn't seen Jenkins since Mexico, 40 years prior. We don't get any closure on the Russia op; we just go right into courtroom drama territory, of which I'm not exactly the biggest fan.
One of the things that bothers me about some legal thrillers is the author having one character say something to another character during a scene - like an attorney questioning a witness -to make sure the reader gets a point the author is making about the case, when he person on the receiving end of the remark would know whatever the thing was. There are two of these within a couple of pages where Jenkins, who is not a lawyer, tells his own lawyer something about the testimony being offered by a witness. His lawyer would know these things Jenkins whispers to him, as would a reader who has been paying attention.
One part of the ending is very contrived, but serves to solve a large problem (and also made me like Federov more, even if I found that, too, to be improbable). I won't spoil that.
Since this is listed as "Charles Jenkins #1" I don't think it a spoiler to say that it ends rather well for Jenkins.
Four stars for the spy part of the book, most of which is in Russia in a winter Dugoni manages to capture nicely. Two stars for the courtroom drama, including the unnecessary commentary by Jenkins. Splitting the difference to give this three stars.
Read via KU.
Into this mess walks his former chief, offering him an off the books op, with a payment that will take care of his money problems: go to Russia, find out who is killing off the Seven Sisters, Russian women who are American assets, and find the four who have not yet been killed. The problem: none of the Seven Sisters are connected to one another in any way, and they are unknown to one another, so who is killing them, and how does the killer know they are US assets? Is it the rumored Eighth Sister of the title?
Let's pause there for a moment. I'm a fan of good spy novels. The superb Prince of Spies by Alex Gerlis, for instance. In the nonfiction and the best fiction I've read about spies and spycraft, one of the things that has often struck me is just how pedestrian most spying is and how ordinary-looking most spies are. While the eccentric or flamboyant or outed/burned spies and terrible ops get all the headlines and movies, the rest simply do their jobs. Now, knowing these things, and knowing that Russia (and other countries through which Jenkins travels) is predominantly white, and predominantly under six feet tall, I wondered just how Jenkins was "the perfect fit" for this job, and how implausible it would be for him to be sent to essentially gather intelligence, discreetly, having been out of the game for 40 years. Since he was a field officer, he should have wondered this, too, but in the end, the money offer wins out, and off he goes.
What ensues is a cat and giant mouse game, with Jenkins pursued by a very determined FSB (the successor to the KGB) agent, Viktor Federov, through Russia, Turkey, and Greece. To be honest, I really leaned more toward liking Federov a lot more than Jenkins, if only because he seemed much more realistic, and even though he was greedy and unhappy with his job, he had a plan and the will to continue going after Jenkins. Jenkins appears to not have any issues losing sleep or pushing his 60-ish year old body as if he were a 20-year old, or falling right back into field agent work without a hiccup even though he hasn't been in the field for literally decades. At one rather ridiculous point, we are expected to believe that Jenkins has managed to procure a burka to cover his over 6-foot plus body, and no one seems to raise any questions about a supposed woman the size of an NFL linebacker in said burka.
While the spy portion of the story is interesting, even if implausible, the story abruptly changes into a legal drama when Jenkins manages to return to the US to find it looks like his old boss didn't have his best interests in mind. Jenkins turns to the FBI, only to find himself arrested for espionage: there was no op, his old boss says, and he hasn't seen Jenkins since Mexico, 40 years prior. We don't get any closure on the Russia op; we just go right into courtroom drama territory, of which I'm not exactly the biggest fan.
One of the things that bothers me about some legal thrillers is the author having one character say something to another character during a scene - like an attorney questioning a witness -to make sure the reader gets a point the author is making about the case, when he person on the receiving end of the remark would know whatever the thing was. There are two of these within a couple of pages where Jenkins, who is not a lawyer, tells his own lawyer something about the testimony being offered by a witness. His lawyer would know these things Jenkins whispers to him, as would a reader who has been paying attention.
One part of the ending is very contrived, but serves to solve a large problem (and also made me like Federov more, even if I found that, too, to be improbable). I won't spoil that.
Since this is listed as "Charles Jenkins #1" I don't think it a spoiler to say that it ends rather well for Jenkins.
Four stars for the spy part of the book, most of which is in Russia in a winter Dugoni manages to capture nicely. Two stars for the courtroom drama, including the unnecessary commentary by Jenkins. Splitting the difference to give this three stars.
Read via KU.