The Ghost War (John Wells Series #2)

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Last time out, Alex Berenson won the Edgar First Novel award with suspenseful The Faithful Spy. Now he and his CIA agent protagonist, John Wells, return with another devilishly riveting spy thriller. Wells has returned Stateside after the deeply traumatizing events of his near-total immersion in the inner sanctums of al-Qaeda. But his Washington sanctuary brings him no rest: Reports drift in from Afghanistan of a frightening surge in Taliban activity, fueled, it is believed, by an unidentified foreign power. Unable to sit on his hands by the Potomac as dangers fester, our covert op darts once again into the hornets' nest. Even he could not expect what would meet him there.

Robert D. Kaplan

In The Ghost War, the New York Times reporter Alex Berenson has fashioned a smart, economically written spy novel that imagines a future clash with the Chinese. As such, it's a novel for policy wonks, with a very sophisticated vision of how a conflict with China could come about, akin to the kind of war-gaming scenarios that occupy Washington strategists.
—The New York Times

Publishers Weekly

Having foiled an al-Qaeda plot targeting Times Square in 2006's The Faithful Spy(which won an Edgar Award for best first novel), maverick CIA agent John Wells confronts a very different threat in this pulse-pounding sequel from New York Timesreporter Berenson. When the CIA's efforts to extract Dr. Sung Kwan, a North Korean scientist and an invaluable source on Kim Jong Il's nuclear ambitions, result in the deaths of Kwan and the rescue team, Wells's significant other, Jennifer Exley, searches to identify the person in U.S. intelligence who compromised Kwan's security. Meanwhile, Wells returns to Afghanistan, the scene of much of the action in The Faithful Spy, to find out what outside country has been helping the Taliban reassert itself. While the mole hunt will be familiar to genre buffs and the characters and the perils they face aren't as nuanced as those in John le Carré or even David Ignatius, the author's plausible scenario distinguishes this from most spy thrillers. Author tour. (Feb.)

Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information

Library Journal

Having enjoyed an illustrious debut with the 2007 Edgar Award-winning The Faithful Spy, Berenson deploys CIA agent John Wells to defuse a cleverly triangulated scheme aimed at vaulting China to full status as a major world power. Ambitious General Li, hoping to aid hundreds of millions of struggling Chinese have-nots, launches plots in North Korea, England, and Afghanistan to consolidate his power in Beijing. Working with shards of evidence, Wells races to decode the plot just hours before the Li-choreographed war erupts. Especially effective as psychological studies of men under stress are the contrasting portrayals of CIA agent Wells, warts and all, with the CIA mole who shops the United States to General Li. Berenson marshals turncoats, the Taliban, and testosterone to produce a tautly paced, credible, and gripping scenario guaranteed to buttress Berenson's niche as one of the stars in the suspense firmament. For public library suspense collections. [See Prepub Alert, LJ10/1/07.]
—Barbara Conaty

Kirkus Reviews

John Wells, who saved America's bacon in Berenson's The Faithful Spy (2006), returns, incompletely recovered from his Times Square showdown with Islamic terrorists. Tortured by the violence of his years as a double agent, Wells still craves action and excitement: He routinely rises from the bed he shares with comely intelligence agent Jennifer Exley for high-speed midnight rides on his huge motorcycle. Not to worry because real action is on the way. There's been a disaster off the coast of North Korea, where what was to have been the extraction of America's best intelligence source has gone completely wrong. All hands were lost when a bug planted on the rescued scientist put the rescue team squarely in the sights of a Korean submarine. How the scientist came to be bugged and why he was betrayed has everything to do with why Wells is recalled to service along with his lady friend. It is becoming clear that great international mischief is afoot, and Wells has the right combination of fluent Arabic and nearly superhuman strength to begin unraveling the anti-American plot, requiring the agent to fly to Afghanistan and join in a small deadly strike on hidden Taliban fighters. Numerous bodies bite the dust before Wells snares the Taliban's Russian consultants. Russians? Indeed. They are part of the machinery set in motion by General Li Ping, the only man at the top of the Chinese Communist party who is not on the take. Li's plan to bring about fair distribution of the new national wealth involves not only those Russians, but a mole at the CIA whose treachery has blinded the agency at the worst possible time. Terrific and relentless suspense and action in a reasonably credible plot. Agent:Heather Schroder/ICM