- Mass Market Paperback: 528 pages
- Publisher: Bantam; Reprint edition (April 1 2003)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0553581538
- ISBN-13: 978-0553581539
- Product Dimensions: 10.8 x 2.5 x 17.5 cm
- Shipping Weight: 227 g
- Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #1,457,147 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Amazon
Mathews, a former CIA agent, delivers the goods in a powerful, atmospheric thriller suggested by the colorful life and mysterious disappearance of Jim Thompson, who served as the first chief of U.S. Intelligence in Bangkok and founded the famed Thai silk company that still bears his name. In the author's telling, Thompson is Jack Broderick, whose grandson Max stakes his claim to the treasure of ancient artifacts and jewels amassed by the Silk King and appropriated by the Thai government after he vanished into the jungle at the height of the Vietnam War. When Max hires Oliver Krane's "risk management" firm to help him secure his legacy, Krane offers the brilliant and beautiful Stefani Fogg an irresistible challenge: prove Max's claim by solving the riddle of who Jack Broderick really was. Cutting back and forth between the past and present, Mathews weaves a fascinating web of intrigue and adventure that encompasses four decades of American involvement in southeast Asia as Krane leads Stefani into a shifting, shadowy world where nothing is ever as it seems, including the truth. The characters are unforgettable, the pacing is impeccable, and the narrative never loses focus despite the complicated plot in a page-turner that richly fulfills the promise of the author's first espionage novel (The Cutout). --Jane Adams
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.
From Publishers Weekly
Mathews, writing as Stephanie Barron, has had considerable success splicing mystery plots with the real-life story of novelist Jane Austen. Now she takes another true story, that of a legendary American spy and silk merchant named Jim Thompson, and tries - with somewhat less success but lots of old-fashioned panache - to turn it into adventure fiction. Like Thompson, her protagonist, Jack Roderick, worked for the OSS (and its successor, the CIA) in Bangkok from 1945 until he disappeared in Malaysia in 1967. Unlike Thompson, Roderick had a son, Rory, who was killed in Vietnam, and a grandson, Max, who becomes an Olympic ski champion. It's Max who starts the narrative engine here when he tries to pressure the Thai government to turn his grandfather's fabulous house in Bangkok over to him. Soon, Max is one step ahead of a murderous plot that leads him to call on the services of a risk management expert called Oliver Krane. Krane in turn persuades Stefani Fogg - an attractive, deceptively fragile financial expert with a checkered past - to help Max in his quest. If this all sounds complicated and confusing, it is - especially since Mathews interrupts her present-day story (which zooms from the Scottish Highlands to the French Alps and then to Vietnam and Bangkok) with constant flashbacks to Jack Roderick's adventures and Rory's Vietnam saga. It's easy to see why Mathews, who worked for the CIA herself as an analyst, became fascinated with Thompson and Bangkok, but even her strong narrative skills (and superb action set pieces involving natural disasters like a typhoon and an avalanche) are hard-pressed to keep this jerky train on its tracks.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
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Customer Reviews
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Most helpful customer reviews
3.0 out of 5 stars
love or hate it,
By Daffydd (Ontario, Canada) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Secret Agent (Mass Market Paperback)
I found this on a recommended shelf of a bookstore I frequent. It wasn't one I would recommend, nor one I would avoid. There were stretches in the story I was really drawn in, but it never became one 'I just couldn't put down'... which I did a couple times reading something else instead, but I did come back to the novel after a while wanting to know a little more of what was going on and what had gone on.There is a current story, and a history that is also being revealled that is the imputus of the current story, and that worked for me. I just didn't have an attachment to the main character. Other readers DID.
4.0 out of 5 stars
One Intense Ride,
By
This review is from: The Secret Agent (Mass Market Paperback)
Run, do not walk, to your nearest bookstore and buy this book If you like action packed adventure and an intense interplay between personalities, geography and plot then you will find this a fine book as your ride a whirlwind of story telling that involves you in systems and power structures beyond your ability to control. A complicated, aggressive and risk-taking woman is drawn into an intricate plot that spans three continents, involves people willing to kill and a foreign culture in Thailand impenetrable by traditional western patterns. Francine Mathews worked for the CIA and has carried some of that knowledge with her as she develops exciting, dynamic ways of imagining a world and telling us about it. I hope she has a long career of writing novels and I look forward to her next one.
5.0 out of 5 stars
Engrossing and Fun,
By Vesta Irene (the Pacific Northwest) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Secret Agent (Mass Market Paperback)
Jack Roderick was trained by the OSS, became a silk merchant in Thailand, collected beautiful art and was known to be a foreign spy. Then one night, he walked into the jungle and disappeared. Now his grandson Max, who is a world-class competitive skier, wants his father's Thai fortune, but governmental red tape is blocking his goal Max hires Krane & Associates, a security firm, to help him with his quest. And Krane assignes his newest employee Stefani Fogg, a rich, brilliant and beautiful daredevil, to help Max and together Max and Stefani find conspiracy, truth and a whole lot more in this five star well characterized, fast moving book. Reviewed by Vesta Irene
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