SHADOW PATROL

It’s always good to see good writing getting to the top, and Alex Berenson is consistent with this, his 6^th foray into his ex-CIA’s career.

The set up is simple enough. In 2009 a mole within al-Quaeda, and he contacts the CIA to set up meetings in order to give up information about Osama bin Laden, but when the most senior officers are there, he detonates a bomb and kills all the CIA’s top staff.

Two years on, the CIA has failed to get the station back operating again. The staff are ineffectual, their efforts are incompetently handled – or, as Langley now suspects, perhaps there is another mole. Could their station have been infiltrated by their enemies? And there are rumours and suspicions about drugs. Does someone have another motive for preventing the CIA from getting back to normal?

So much for the summary – this is a really good read, and Berenson lives up to expectation. There are some minor glitches: I felt that the links between the different elements of the story were a little clunky in places, but that’s a stylistic thing. For myself, I’d have preferred to forget the idea of a crime story theme, and more of a pure thriller with the story unfolding, but that is a minor quibble. This is a superb read that will grip Berenson fans all over the world.