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The prologue of this novel by Mark Henshaw is very intriguing. It sets up the reader to care about what happened and will happen to a CIA newbie named Kyra Stryker. Although she has strong misgivings, the head of her department in Venezuela sends her out to meet an operative. It is a trap and she is shot and almost killed. Although it is not her fault, she is the fall guy for the mess-up. As the book opens, she has been transferred to CIA headquarters and is miserable being out of the field. The author seems to have immaculate credentials to write about the CIA and its worldwide reach. He is ex-CIA and also a former member of the group called the Red Cell, which sounds like it must have something to do with China but does not. And that is the problem with the remainder of this thriller. Henshaw is so steeped in the realities of what may have occurred and the details and the idiosyncrasies and the political intrigue that he thinks his readers will care as well. The focus is no longer Kyra. Mainland China is secretly attacking Taiwan. This could create a rising crescendo of suspense and excitement. But Henshaw's structure is episodic and disjointed. We go back and forth between happenings on aircrafts and aircraft carriers in the Strait of Taiwan and backbiting dialogue at Langley between analysts and programmers and various officials. Kyra is assigned to a special analytic group called the Red Cell, whose mandate is to think outside of the box. However, she is not presented very clearly or engagingly as she participates in verbal sparring with her boss Jonathan Burke. She also may or may not be flirting with computer person named Weaver who is challenged to decode some information. The head of the CIA is a woman, a refreshing change, but Kathy Cooke is not a fully realized character either and she may or may not have a relationship with Burke. Eventually Kyra, who may or may not have a drinking problem, is offered a chance to go back into the field and be successful. The mission is to go to Beijing and interview or possibly extract a CIA asset whose code name is Pioneer. He has communicated to the CIA that he believes the Chinese are watching him. His information is vital to stopping the confrontation brewing between the PRC and Taiwan by understanding the new weapon the Chinese have developed, a stealth plane called the Assassin's Mace. But if the Chinese pick him up before the Americans can extricate him, his fate is certain. The book comes to life when Kyra is outwitting Chinese agents in the alleys of Beijing, but the story drifts off into other areas. The author seems to think that the novel is about the secret weapon that the Chinese have created, but his writing lacks focus. The story and the action continue to be on the back burner as Henshaw fills his pages with complicated details about code breaking and insider fighting between various CIA departments. Storytelling is impaled on the spike of too much information. It is clear that the author is steeped in the sorts of operations and operatives he is writing about. He writes well, but much of the book is tedious. He allows his desire to include all of his insider intelligence get in the way of the chief task of a fiction writer, to tell a good story. Behind the scenes becomes front and center, and the action and interest are lost. At the end, it is hard to care about Kyra or Pioneer or any of the other characters to whom we have been introduced in only a shallow manner. If the thrill of the action had been greater, it might have made up for this lack of character development, but except for a few scenes, suspense is lacking as well. Anne Corey is a writer, poet, teacher and botanical artist in New York's Hudson Valley.
Reviewed by Anne Corey, May 2012
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