From Amazon.com
As Gayle Lynds's third solo mystery-thriller opens, hotshot D.C. attorney Beth Convey is sewing up the biggest case of her career. It's the case that'll lead to a partnership in the hoity-toity Washington law firm of Edwards and Bonnet and the one that will cement her professional relationship with a soon-to-be enormously wealthy woman. Unfortunately for Beth, it turns out to be the case that kills her.
Shocked back to life, Beth makes do with her faulty ticker until Mikhail Ogust's heart, having no use for his recently deceased body, takes up residence in Convey's chest. And that is where the fun begins. Before you can say "glasnost," Beth is suffering violent nightmares starring murderous Russian individuals, craving vodka, and hungering after snacks more appropriate to the Volga than the Potomac. She's also realized an appreciation and understanding of high-powered weaponry.
Meanwhile Jeff Hammond, a disgraced former FBI agent-cum-star reporter for The Washington Post, is desperately seeking a Russian defector, while agent Eli Kirkhart, Hammond's former partner, is chasing him. In short order, and in differing degrees of partnership, Convey, Hammond, and Kirkhart are knee-deep in duplicitous intrigue both foreign and domestic, bands of well-trained vigilantes bent on governmental overthrow, disguise-wearing spies worthy of Mission Impossible, and, finally, a plot to assassinate a pair of presidents.
Aside from a spate of dialogue (particularly Hammond's and Kirkhart's) that reads like a stubbed toe, Mesmerized barrels right along and carries with it enough successful plot twists to satisfy most anyone's craving for spy vs. spy. Lynds's previous mysteries are Masquerade, Mosaic, and 2000's The Hades Factor, written with Robert Ludlum. --Michael Hudson
From Publishers Weekly
Is it possible for memories and talents to be transferred from one human being to another by a heart transplant? Lynds (Mosaic) develops this entertaining premise into a hit-or-miss espionage thriller, pitting Russian assassins against two wrongfully accused fugitives. Beautiful blonde international lawyer Beth Convey collapses in court during a heated trial and wakes to find herself with a new heart, recovered from a murdered Russian man. Soon she craves Russian foods, becomes a karate expert and nearly gets herself killed by a KGB assassin after she calls a phone number she hears in her head; she only escapes with help from publicly disgraced but secretly deep cover FBI agent Jeff Hammond. After Beth shoots another would-be assassin in front of witnesses, and Hammond is framed by an FBI mole for murder, the two band together to track down the man they believe is behind it all ex-KGB biggie Alexei Berianov. When they discover that Berianov is associated with a fanatic U.S. group called Keepers of the Truth, and that both the U.S. president and Vladimir Putin, on a visit to the White House, may be in danger, they must sprint to save the day, all the while evading their pursuers. Lynds crafts great action scenes and hairbreadth escapes, plotting double and triple crosses. But bothersome gaps toward the end of the narrative and preachy dialogue at unusual moments disrupt the flow and derail the otherwise on-target narrative. An overemphasis on physical description also distracts from Lynds's potentially intriguing but finally disappointing tale. (May)Forecast: Lynds co-wrote The Hades Factor with legendary author Robert Ludlum, but this solo effort fails to hit the mark. The long blurb from Ludlum on the galley (and presumably on the dust jacket) may spur sales, but in this book Lynds doesn't display what it takes to draw Ludlum-size crowds.
Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
