Thrillers, Crime Fiction

Last Snow (Jack McClure Series #2)

Name: Last Snow (Jack McClure Series #2)
Author: Eric Van Lustbader
ISBN: 9780765364364

by Eric Van Lustbader, Eric Van Lustbabder

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Overview

New York Times bestselling sensation Eric Van Lustbader created the legendary Nicholas Linnear of The Ninja and brought Jason Bourne into the twenty-first century. Last year, in First Daughter, Lustbader introduced street-smart ATF agent Jack McClure, who saved the President’s daughter from a criminal mastermind.

When an American senator who is supposed to be in the Ukraine turns up dead on the island of Capri, the President asks McClure to investigate. Jack sets out from Moscow across Eastern Europe, following a perilous trail of diplomats, criminals, and corrupt politicians. His task is complicated by two unlikely, unexpected, and incompatible companions---Annika, a rogue Russian FSB agent, and Alli, the President’s daughter.

Thrust into the midst of a global jigsaw puzzle, Jack’s unique dyslexic mind allows him to put together the pieces that others can’t even see. As he struggles to keep both young women safe and uncover the truth behind the senator’s death, Jack learns just how far up the American and Russian political ladders corruption and treachery have reached.

Synopsis

In this electrifying follow-up to the New York Times bestselling thriller First Daughter, Jack McClure investigates the death of an American senator.

Publishers Weekly

Bestseller Lustbader's wordy sequel to First Daughter takes dyslexic Jack McClure, former ATF agent and now adviser to recently elected U.S. president Edward Carson, to Moscow, where Carson is negotiating an important treaty with Russian president Yukin. When minority whip Sen. Lloyd Berns dies in a mysterious hit-and-run accident on Capri, the president asks Jack to investigate. Accompanied by Annika, a beautiful Federal Security Bureau agent who's part of a complicated Russian trap, and Alli, Carson's 22-year-old daughter whom Jack saved from a bad guy in the previous book, Jack travels to Ukraine, where Berns was supposed to be on a fact-finding tour. In Kiev, Jack finds a secret agency called Trinadtsat, a shadowy group of Russian oligarchs, and plenty of trouble, including a retired American general out to have him killed. Lustbader fritters away many pages with Jack's navel-gazing, time that could have been better spent in gunfights and derring-do. (Feb.)

About the Author, Eric Van Lustbader

ERIC VAN LUSTBADER is the author of many bestselling thrillers, including the New York Times bestsellers The Testament and The Ninja. His first Jack McClure book, First Daughter, was also a New York Times bestseller. He has also been chosen by Robert Ludlum's estate to continue the Jason Bourne series. His Jason Bourne novels include The Bourne Legacy and The Bourne Betrayal. He and his wife live in New York City and the South Fork of Long Island.

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Editorials

From the Publisher

“A seductive, sophisticated, authentic thriller…Eric Van Lustbader’s legion of fans will be both pleased and enhanced by this terrific story, terrifically told, by a master who knows how to manipulate the reader in fiendishly exciting ways.”

—Steve Berry, New York Times bestselling author of The Venetian Betrayal

“A terrific story, swift-moving and thought-provoking, but told with a depth and tenderness that will last long after you have closed the final page.”

--Anne Perry, New York Times bestselling author of At Some Disputed Barricade

“Last Snow catapults high above the bar of great thrillers.”

—Nelson DeMille, New York Times bestselling author of The Gate House

Publishers Weekly

Library Journal

In this follow-up to First Daughter, the Cold War has never really thawed. ATF agent Jack McClure, having rescued President Edward Carson's daughter, is now the president's strategic adviser. While McClure is with Carson in Moscow, U.S. Senator Berns is killed in a hit-and-run accident. Berns was a crucial ally in Carson's strategy to get legislation passed in the Democratic-controlled Congress. Is the death an accident or was it a deliberate act by Carson's enemies? Carson sends McClure to investigate. Working the case with McClure is Annika, a rogue Russian counterintelligence agent, and Alli, Carson's daughter. Their investigation delves into a nefarious political intrigue that reaches beyond the death of one man. VERDICT Lustbader carefully weaves a suspenseful political tale that keeps readers guessing what truth will be revealed when the last snow melts away. With an exciting pace reminiscent of the best works by Tom Clancy and David Baldacci, this is sure to appeal to political thriller enthusiasts who love conspiracy narratives with surprises down every dark, twisted alley.—Susan O. Moritz, Montgomery Cty. P.L., MD

Kirkus Reviews

A lascivious senator meets an untoward end. The president's bewildered daughter is involved-and so is tough but sensitive ATF agent Jack McClure, the hero of the piece. Readers met McClure (and said bewildered one) in First Daughter (2009). Van Lustbader (The Testament, 2006, etc.), carefully fueling the franchise, drops us smack down where the thrills and spills left off. McClure, dyslexic but a close reader of human nature all the same, is now in President Edward Carson's inner circle, charged, among other things, with keeping young missy out of danger. Fat chance, for the bad guys have designs on her, on the president, on all that is good and noble about the American way of life. Of course, there's bunches of politicos on Capitol Hill who have no idea of what those ideals might mean, and they've been shacking up with the apparatchiks and new rich and uranium hustlers across the waters in Putin's Russia, aka the Evil Empire. McClure knows that the game's afoot, and that he's pretty much on his own ("He had always been an outsider-from his dyslexia to his unorthodox upbringing he's never fit in, and, as he'd finally been able to admit to himself if not to anyone else...he didn't want to.") Enter sweet, sassy and ever so lethal Annika, "a member of an undercover unit of the Russian Federal Police...you could call her a spy without fear of contradiction," who has Electra complex issues of her own, and the fun really gets going. The necklines are low and the body count is high, fulfilling formula obligations; but Van Lustbader is an old hand at this spy-vs.-spy stuff, having resurrected Jason Bourne in the wake of Robert Ludlum's departure from the planet, and he throws in enough twists andturns (and karate chops and slippery Crimean byways) to keep things original and interesting. Will the forces of good prevail? Stay tuned-but bet your bippy that there will be a sequel.