Crook Factory, The (Mass Market Paperback)

As I said, this is a very good novel of its kind. It just suffers from a perspective defect.

Beyond this fine character portrait, we find a plot that seemingly came strictly from the land of make-believe, that is until you look at the documented facts surrounding the creation and operation of Hemingway's contribution to the WWII effort, his self-named Crook Factory. Nominally a strictly amateur counter-espionage group, which should have occupied the attention of the Washington bureaucrats for all of two minutes, is instead shown here to be the focus of not one but at least four professional intelligence-gathering organizations. Simmons weaves a finely complicated tale within the documented facts, some of which paint a very frightening picture of certain American organizations, and which become even more frightening in light of certain recently passed legislation allowing these organizations even more effectively unsupervised power. In Simmons' hands the facts and the fiction meld to become a nice who-is-really-who thriller, a ball of twine that Simmons carefully unravels and knits into shapes that continue to intrigue till the very climax of this work.

Simmons' style is a long ways from Hemingway's, normally a pretty basic utilitarian prose that does a decent job of presenting the story, but not exceptional. In a few spots, however, he caught something of Hemingway's inimitable ability to describe far more than just what the objective words on the page relay. These moments are few, though, and in many places I felt he presented too much mind-boggling detail of marginal relevance to the main story, regardless of how well these details are documented. These details in many places somewhat spoil the pacing of this otherwise well-wrought thriller.

Simmons also includes an epilogue, just to tie up all the loose ends. As he says himself within it, this is a bad idea. He had a perfectly good finish without the epilogue, and its inclusion merely weakens the overall impact of the work.

A good, enthralling read, with some nasty implications for today's world, although perhaps not the absolute top-flight work Simmons has exhibited in such works as Hyperion.

--- Reviewed by Patrick Shepherd (hyperpat)