THE COUNTERFEIT AGENT

The CIA get word from a seemingly reliable source, a rogue member of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard no less, that the regime has plans to take the offensive, starting with the murder of an agency station head and ending with the possibility of nuclear materiel having  been smuggled into the US. Is this the espionage coup of the decade or the prelude to a world crisis, finding out is a job for John Wells, the man the authorities go to when they need action taking off the books.

Alex Berenson’s latest thriller has an alarming ring of authenticity about it, from the tradecraft used by Wells, through the behind the scenes wrangling within the CIA to the hair trigger response of a superpower feeling threatened from all sides. He carries his readers along on a wave of action and intrigue that barely givens them time to catch their breath.

Wells makes for an engaging protagonist, a killing machine with a conscience trapped by the world he inhabits and the demands surviving there place on his character and relationships. The Middle Eastern setting with its mix of the exotic and the squalid, with dangerous alliances shifting at a moment’s notice is described with the eye of an expert.

This latest outing for Wells and Berenson easily meets the high standard set by his previous books. Not least because he leaves you with the uncomfortable feeling events not unlike those he describes might well take place in the darker corners of the world where most of us don’t like to look.