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As a professional cleaner, Jonathan Quinn is the man you call upon when you need a crime scene cleaned up so there will be no evidence left behind, whether that be disposing of bodies or removing trace evidence. He is an independent operative and feels no qualms about turning down jobs that he thinks aren't going to turn out well. At first, that's how he feels when he's asked to remove a body from a shipping container; it seems to him that there's a high risk of things going awry. He rapidly changes his mind when he actually sees the victim, a man by the name of Steven Markoff who was formerly a CIA agent and who risked his own life to save Quinn. Although Quinn generally keeps a distance from his jobs, there's no way that he can pass this one off. He has to find out what happened to Markoff and avenge his death. Quinn's first course of action is to try to find Markoff's significant other, Jenny Fuentes. When he attempts to do so, he finds that she seems to have vanished. Naturally, he wonders if he is dealing with two deaths instead of one. He is assisted by his apprentice, Nate, and a woman named Orlando who has often served as his partner in the past and is expert at working online to find information. As Jonathan traces Jenny's activities, he keeps running across a woman named Tasha who states that she is Jenny's friend. She quickly becomes annoying. Unlike most of Quinn's jobs, this quest is a personal one. The passages dealing with his relationship with Markoff and what Markoff did for him were highly involving emotionally. It was strange to me that Battles was able to accomplish that for this relationship but not for the one between Jonathan and Nate. Even when Nate is grievously injured, it's hard to work up much feeling about him. Nate is never really developed; rather, he seems to serve as a device to do some of the dirty work. I think it would be interesting to see Quinn train Nate and develop his "cleaning" skills; that isn't done at all in this book. For me the major flaw in the book was the fact that Quinn relegates all of the work to the other characters. They facilitate things and make them happen so that Quinn can move forward. It feels like a cheat; he is able to assign every task to someone else and doesn't have to do things on his own. For example, there is an Asian man whom Quinn threatens a bit who orchestrates a power outage, provides living quarters, brings in medical attention, etc. THE DECEIVED is the second book in the series. Be warned that it contains many spoilers about events that occurred in the first book, THE CLEANER. Like that earlier book, THE DECEIVED is a fast-paced and well-plotted thriller. Quinn and company hop around the globe and end up in Singapore where a surprising development occurs. It's easy to imagine the book as a movie, although there would be a lot of very tired actors after all the running and chasing involved. Despite its flaws, I was caught up in the action and enjoyed the book. I do wonder where the author will take the ensemble in future books—will Quinn return to professional cleaning or take on more personal kinds of assignments?
Reviewed by Maddy Van Hertbruggen, November 2008
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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
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