Science & Technology - Fiction, Thrillers, Occupations - Fiction

Burning the Apostle

Name: Burning the Apostle
Author: Bill Granger
ISBN: 9781560546924

by Bill Granger

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Overview

The cold war is dead. Yet new, even more frightening wars have sprung up elsewhere. The field of battle for Devereaux - code name November - as been outside the American border, until now. In Burning The Apostle, the best November Man novel yet, Devereaux must turn his finely tooled spymaster's art to the enemy within, the most elusive and dangerous enemy of all. The stage is Washington and Chicago. The conflict is driven by demagogues, with their narrow special interests and private agendas, and the arrogant, corrupt politicians willing to go along with them. Britta Andrews, a bright, beautiful heiress with a radical environmental consciousness, joins with former army ordnance officer Max Escher. Their goal: to hatch an audacious plan that can destroy the civilian nuclear energy industry in one bold stroke. Their method: burn down a single Midwestern nuclear plant called The Apostle, creating a Chernobyl-like cloud of poison that will shock and outrage the world. The financing for the plot is to come from a mysterious Lebanese source, the International Credit Clearinghouse. Covertly allied to the conspirators is Michael Horan, the playboy U.S. Senator from Pennsylvania and Britta's lover. The scenario explodes with a massive, brilliantly conceived fire inside the Pentagon that nearly shuts it down. Drawn into the nightmare web of events is Devereaux, now senior advisor in R Section. Yet even Devereaux can't foresee the global breadth and lethal complexity of the threat that is to gradually enmesh him. In less than twenty-four hours, the November Man will have to defuse the most potentially devastating act of sabotage in history - and avenge an agonizingly personal injustice. Burning The Apostle is a masterpiece of suspense, sensuality, and authorial style-hallmarks in the craft of espionage fiction that fans of Bill Granger and the November Man series have come to expect.

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Editorials

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

With their eerily plausible plots and intriguingly complex protagonist, Granger's November Man novels featuring intelligence operative Devereaux rank among the finest examples of espionage fiction. This 13th adventure (after The Last Good German ) is a disappointment, however. Chief among the novel's conceptual flaws is a lack of real evil in the novel's many villains, who include an eco-terrorist socialite, a feckless U.S. senator and a Clark Clifford-like power broker. None seems wicked enough to carry out the plot--to cause a major nuclear disaster near Chicago in order to discredit the nuclear-power industry. The desultory way in which Granger brings Devereaux into the action (the PI stumbles onto the conspiracy while trying to avenge the deaths of agents in Lebanon) weakens the narrative, as do stylistic tics such as ending virtually every chapter with a portentous sentence or paragraph. In the end, little seems contemporary here (despite echoes of the BCCI scandal); the threat of an American Chernobyl-style nuclear disaster that could kill thousands, even millions, of innocent people should generate more drama and tension than it does in this uninvolving presentation. (Feb.)

Donna Seaman

Another attention-grabber in Granger's deservedly popular November Man series, this doomsday tale is a satisfying mix of melodrama and cynicism. Our man Devereaux is obsessed with the death of six of his agents, especially the enigmatic Mona with whom he was in love, albeit unrequited. Their killers are the cold-blooded Middle Eastern operatives in charge of an international bank that bankrolls large-scale terrorist activities. Meanwhile, a very rich, brittlely beautiful, and utterly insane young woman, Britta Andrews, is busy wrapping a whiskey-sipping Senator around her bony little finger while securing millions of the bad guys' money to fund a terrorist group called the DOVE: Directorate of Violent Environmentalism. Britta is vehemently against nuclear energy and has a brilliant plan for its demise: an American Chernobyl. Her target is a reactor built on what was formerly the site of a seminary; it's called the Apostle, and its destruction would kill tens of thousands of people in the Greater Chicago area. And she's found the perfect maniac for the job. As Granger sets the doomsday clock ticking, he exposes the jagged psyches of a delectably dangerous, crazy, and valiant cast of characters while pulling off masterful scenes of sexual power plays and daring foxiness. This is very hot stuff.