5 comments about Ask A Dead Man.

1. In a Belfast bar, a Plowman sent by the notorious Thirty-Two kills their former leader Frankie McCrory in front of his wife Katie McCrory because they obtained evidence that he turned traitor and worked for an American espionage agency TRIAD. . While Kate mourns her loss, Frankie's odious brother Liam blackmails his sister-in-law into doing a job for the Thirty-Two. She is to deliver money and equipment to a Plowman who will assassinate African leader Mustamba. If she fails to deliver, her beloved "adopted" family the Osbornes in Pasadena, California will die.
   
   On the train heading to Pasadena, Katie kills the same Plowman who murdered Frankie before he could assassinate her. In Pasadena she checks in with her TRIAD boss, devious Walter Burkes who wonders who his agent works for since her beloved die. As she seeks vengeance, but not sure against whom, Katie risks her life to keep the Osbornes safe and to obtain the truth. Only her former lover Los Angeles Police Detective Peter Osborne tries to keep her safe though he is not sure what is going on.
   
   Though it is difficult to keep track of the players, their agencies, and the twists (Katie feels the same way), fans will enjoy this solid espionage police procedural thriller. The story line is action-packed from the moment the Plowman kills Frankie until the final twist of a confrontation between Katie and her identified antagonist. Katie is a heroic protagonist wanting revenge yet needing to keep the Osbornes safe while readers will feel for Peter who made one mistake that cost him his beloved. The action and Katie make it worth gyrating through the tangled plot.
   
   Harriet Klausner



2. Ask a Dead Man attracted my attention with its intriguing title. Little did I know how apt the title was until I finished this breathtaking story. The payoff was well worth the reading.
   
   Ask a Dead Man is a book for today about terrorists and antiterrorism efforts. At the same time, the book looks into timeless questions about love and loyalty that will haunt every reader.
   
   A strong book always makes me identify with the characters. In this book, it's all but impossible not to feel like you are KC McClory as she fights to stay alive and do what's right. You will find yourself understanding the other characters . . . but not identifying with them. That's the book's only significant flaw.
   
   The plot itself is a very satisfying one, reminiscent of the best of the Cold War spy stories about double and triple agents.
   
   The story develops in dramatic bursts as each event circumscribes the options open to KC. It's almost as though a classic shrinking room is about crush her.
   
   First, her husband Frankie, a former IRA enforcer who now heads a splinter terrorist group that operates for hire is murdered in front of her before the killer pistol whips her. Second, Frankie's slimy brother, Liam, pressures KC to smuggle explosive and guns into the U.S. for an assassination by Frankie's old group. Third, a "priest" comes on to her on the train headed for Pasadena . . . just before he tries to kill her. It's kill or be killed in a suspenseful scene. Then, she discovers she's killed the man who murdered her husband. Fourth, she's identified as the priest's murderer and her former lover is leading the investigation. Against this backdrop, we learn that she's actually a secret antiterrorism agent who was sent to Ireland to turn Frankie. The agency she works for doesn't trust her, and she's set up by both sides in ever-escalating violence. As the revelations mount, the tension mounts and her situation gets ever dicier. Although it may seem like I've shared too much of the story, that's just the prologue for the really serious developments!
   
   Robert Levinson writes well, keeps his story moving, and has great abilities as a story teller to develop characters with a few words, gestures and actions. Plan to stay up late whenever you start reading this book!



3. After reading the glowing review in Publisher's Weekly, I decided to try out this book. I'm unfamiliar with the series books by this author, but I'm finding Ask A Dead Man to be pretty rough going. I've had to put it down and read 2 or 3 other books since starting it. The writing reminds me of Nelson DeMille, who provided an enthusiastic blurb. I only read one of DeMille's books, and found it equally hard to get into. I know he's very popular, though, so I assume that some people can't get enough of him. If you are one of those people, you might like this book, too.
   
   For me, it's too much tell and not enough show. The female characters ring particularly false to me. All of the women are beautiful, striking, once-beautiful, or faded beauties. All of the men are daring and handsome, except the villains. At over 400 pages, this one is too much like work.



4. I've been a fan of Levinson's work since I was given a copy of "The Elvis and Marilyn Affair" as a gift. I didn't quite know what to expect with "Ask a Dead Man." New publisher, different characters (no more Neil Gulliver and Stevie Marriner!?). I was worried not only that I'd never find out what happens with Neil and Stevie, but that I wouldn't like this book as much.
   
   Needless to say, my fears were groundless. The story is compelling from moment one, reminiscent of Ludlum but with the more subtly nuanced use of language that makes Levinson so enjoyable in the first place.
   
   Unlike most "thrillers" this one also packs enough mystery in the form of trying to figure out the good guys from the bad guys that I couldn't put it down --- and, as expected, there was very little that was black and white about the answers.
   
   I don't want to give too much away, but I will say that you should not be surprised to find yourself surprised --- over and over again.



5. The only other Robert S. Levinson book I've read is The John Lennon Affair so I wasn't quite sure what to expect in this book since it's really a different genre. What I got was a suspense thriller that had enough twists and turns to keep me guessing, and enough other plot elements to keep me entertained.
   
   With many fun story elements like double-double crosses and not being able to tell the good guys from the bad ones, this is a good read all around.

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4 comments about A Handful of Kings.

1. Thirty-three years old Vicky Sorrel, disenchanted with the State department, believes it is time to start over. She plans to quit her job as a cultural attaché assigned to the American Embassy in Spain. Vicky also informs her lover Wyatt Willis that she is leaving him behind. When it comes to her job, everyone wishes her the best. When it comes to her lover, he puts on a public show accusing her of betrayal to their eternal love.

   Easily ignoring Wyatt, who added layers of skepticism to the cynical Vicky, she continues to shut down her life in Spain until her plans are disrupted when popular American author Jack Baines asks for help. The Columbia rebel Badger, in an attempt to embarrass the United States, has kidnapped Jack's nephew. Vicky has doubts about Jack's story, but agrees to help him, not realizing what she is getting into.

   Though exciting as a thriller and insightful in terms of Spain and embassy life overseas, A HANDFUL OF KINGS seems a bit short of royalty. The story line moves quickly and the Foreign Service is interesting to watch in action. Vicky is a former optimist, a believer in the American way, but her work has converted her into a delightful doubting Thomasina. The weak link to an otherwise fine tale is Jack, who at times acts like a lone STONE COWBOY and just seems no where near Vicky's level. Still Mark Jacobs provides a solid thriller with a shot of romance that will please suspense fans wondering what is really going on.

   Harriet Klausner




2. In A Handful of Kings, Mark Jacobs combines a taut thriller plot with a love story, and fleshes it out with a wealth of detail about Spain and the American Foreign Service. I was engaged by the three-dimensional characters and caught up in the action as the story unfolded.

   Living in Madrid, I was doubly delighted to see this city feature so prominently in the novel (even though the action takes place also in Colombia and the United States). As Jacobs writes about an encounter in Madrid's El Retiro Park, for example, I could picture the scene vividly in my mind. He also does a great job of capturing the intangible things that make Madrid Madrid, even down to the Ducados cigarette smoke filling up one's favorite Spanish bar. Jacobs, who was a former Foreign Service Officer, does a wonderful job of opening a window onto the environment of a U.S. embassy and the people who run it for the general reader.




3. Mark Jacobs paints the disparate characters in this, his second and best novel, with the broad impressionistic brush strokes of a writer who loves language. When the players in this novel are thrown together by design or by fate and begin to ricochet off of each other with increasing speed, Jacobs' magical word pictures will recall for many readers the verbal mastery of Graham Greene.
   Jacobs depicts with the clarity of one who has been there, the inner conflict of the young female foreign service officer, who is fed up with government bureaucracy yet still drawn to the addictive drama of living as a stranger in a strange land.
   The pathetic preening of Jack, the "famous" author calls to mind a number of Greene's most vulnerable and flawed characters.
   The plot moves slowly at the outset as the characters are drawn and given their places on a broad international stage. The pace picks up quickly, however, as this thoughtful character driven novel morphs into a page turning spy thriller, without ever sacrificing the beautiful language that is the hallmark of this talented author.



4. Not only is this a page-turning tale, but you could wander through many bookstore aisles before matching the quality and imaginative language found in "A Handful of Kings." My only criticism is that the driving impulse to get on with the story was inhibited by the contradictory need to slow down and savor the robust writing. The settings and locales are authentic and convincing, . The carefully woven suspense-inducing strands of narrative eventually are drawn together in a startling climax. The world of international espionage bursts from the page in explosive colors. One might hope that Vicky would return in future works, with or without Jack and Wyatt. Whatever...just keep 'em coming.

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5 comments about Dragon Fire: A Novel.

1. As a Frederick Forsyth fan, I give high compliment to William Cohen.
   I loved this book. I tried to read it slowly so it would last longer, but alas, I couldn't put it down. Please write another, Mr. Cohen!!



2. It's frightening to think that such things occur in the shadows of society but they do. This work of "fiction" might just as well have come from the diary of someone's life or from memories and fears chosen to be put to paper before fading into the darkness of old age.
   
   From the Situation Room of the world's most powerful nation to the spys and operatives in the field, the reader will be kept on the edge wondering what will happen next; how will this one turn out? Plan to be entertained, thrilled, puzzled and frightened at the thought of such things actually happening. Could they, have they, or will they? Perhaps this story is a compilation of facts instead of a mere creation of the author's fantasy. Fantasy or disguised facts, I still wonder which is true but you must decide for yourself. Certainly a worthwhile read.



3. As a career soldier, I was disappointed and angry that a former SECDEF knew so little about the military and how it works at the operational level. The plot was so improbable as to warrant reclassification from thriller to fantasy. Another reviewer described his writing style as clunky; that's an understatement. Mr. Cohen would do well to stick to politics and leave the book writing to the book writers.



4. Written by President Clinton's last Secretary of Defense William Cohen (prior to that a Republican Senator from Maine), I thought a nice fiction book about a SecDef might offer some realistic insider accounts of how things work in the Pentagon. I'm thinking not so much on the realist part, but it was still a lot of fun. Perhaps this shouldn't be a surprise, but the hero of the story is a former two term senator who comes on board to help a president by serving as SecDef. Low and behold, the SecDef is basically James Bond on steroids. (Perhaps Barry Bonds is the better comparison.) Anyway, real or not, it was fun.



5. I bought this book based upon the reviews on the cover. They made it sound like a grand slam homerun. I also thought that a true political insider would be able to construct a taut, suspenseful page-turner that I would not be able to put down. However, I found this tome to be a wordy, disjointed, exercise in futility (much like the Clinton administration itself). The monotonous, continuous, cumbersome, seemingly endless tangents that Cohen takes us on were mind-numbing. I kept reading thinking it had to get better and "take off" at some point, but it never did. There was no climax, no hero that one could root for, and to this day, I'm not sure what the plot was.
   
   I agree with another reviewer who wondered if the book would have been published had the author not been in the President's cabinet. I would have to hope not. Although Cohen was the token Republican in a leftist administration, it seems that he wasn't able to avoid the infection of Clintonian loquaciousness. Inasmuch as the former president couldn't shut up in prime time, it seems the former secretary couldn't shut up in fiction. Do not waste your time with this book.

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