BOOKIN' BINGO'S REVIEW

THE SILENT MAN
by Alex Berenson

CIA Agent John Wells has had a rough time and those who have read Berenson’s other books about Wells, including THE FAITHFUL SPY, can attest to that. However, THE SILENT MAN is easily a stand alone novel that one can read and thrill to on its own. John Wells is trying to get over the past few traumatic years and make a normal life for himself as if that is possible. He is engaged to Jennifer Exley, also a coworker, who he would like to make a life with. However, John Wells knows deep down that it is only a matter of time before his life will be off on another dangerous track and then what would become of Jennifer and their “normal” life? He knows that he has made many enemies in his past-the kind of enemies who don’t forget and will seek revenge.

And so, this is easily illustrated right at the beginning of THE SILENT MAN when an old enemy from a previous encounter tries to get back at Wells, and thus the action begins. And for the faint of hear, I shall tell you it doesn’t stop until the last page of the book!

John Wells and Jennifer Exley are driving when they see a traffic jam in which the two bridges into Washington, D.C.are involved. John starts to get a strange feeling, like he has had before, that something isn’t right. At that point, Wells notices a motorcycle storming up between cars heading straight for them. With grenades and explosions, the world goes crazy. By the end of the day, several people are dead and injured and one of them who is injured is Jennifer. Wells is so upset by it, that when the dust settles he takes on the mission to find who is responsible for this deadly assault. He knows he is going to find the people who did this to Jennifer and the others. The CIA tries to convince him otherwise but alas, he has his mind set on finishing what they started. He had killed the attackers and now he was after the masterminds.

The culprits are traced to Russia where a retired General Ivan Markov is identified as being involved in this. The plot begins now to center around some missing nuclear warheads. In Russia, Wells meets up with several of Markov’s people who he kills. Meanwhile, the mastermind of the attack in Washington that injured Jennifer is named Pierre Kowalski, and he decides that John Wells is too much of a threat and so he decides to call for a meeting with him. He tells Wells he will give him information on some missing nuclear warheads and missing highly enriched uranium from Russia if John will guarantee his safety and not kill him. After investigating Kowalski’s information, John and the CIA race to find where this uranium has gone before it falls into the wrong hands for the wrong use.

While this is going on, the devious plot of using these warheads and uranium continues as Muslims have gotten the missiles and snuck them into the United States. Here they are building a nuclear bomb! Their plan is to attack highly ranked leaders and do away with the world powers that be. This all seems highly improbable on the surface but when we look at the unbelievable acts of terrorism none of us could ever imagine, happening daily in our world right now, one can see that anything is possible.

With an authenticity to match today’s headlines, the drama of this action thriller becomes quite possible and therefore even scarier to those of us reading it in today’s world. Readers will find that the far fetched idea is just slightly plausible if things keep going on as they have. With building suspense, and a believable story line, Berenson keeps the reader involved in this action spy-thriller novel. While some say Berenson’s first novel, THE FAITHFUL SPY, is better than THE SILENT MAN, I can only say, I better read that one as well, if that is the case. I found THE SILENT MAN to be a smart, quick moving, novel with believable characters who were more than superficial as we sometimes find in adventure thrillers of this type. So I recommend this book and to those of you who are just starting out on an Alex Berenson novel, buy them all as it would appear they are all good and you can even follow the finite points of interest that are laid in the first novels.

Submitted originally to Curled Up with a Good Book by Karen Haney