mystery

Stephen Coonts has for several years been busily shouldering his way to the front of the pack of military thriller writers. Seemingly incapable of writing badly, he demonstrates a familiar acquaintance with the geewhiz technological side of the genre while choosing to focus primarily on the personalities between the machinery. Coonts has been most successful with his novels that feature Admiral Jake Grafton. Many of Coonts's longtime readers, however, have clamored for a book featuring Tommy Carmellini, the burglar turned CIA operative who has been one of Coonts's more interesting creations. The readers get their wish --- and then some --- with LIARS & THIEVES.

LIARS & THIEVES is played out against a backdrop that combines the vestiges of the Cold War with a contemporary political convention. Carmellini is assigned to a tour of guard duty at a CIA safe house where U.S. government operatives are debriefing a KGB archivist who has defected to the United States and who has had access to --- and copies of --- records of every intelligence operation that the KGB ever ran. When Carmellini arrives on-site, however, he stumbles into a commando attack --- undertaken by American operatives --- that appears to have left everyone dead, save for an attractive American translator. Carmellini escapes with her, but soon finds that the translator has an agenda all her own.

One other person, however, has also escaped the safe house carnage: it is the archivist, who is suffering from traumatic amnesia. Carmellini suddenly finds himself blamed for the carnage and is potentially in the scope of virtually every law enforcement officer in the country. He must rely on his wits, street smarts and contacts on both sides of the law to determine what was behind the attack on the safe house and to escape intact from the mysterious forces that are pursuing him.

Carmellini turns to his mentor and friend, Jake Grafton, for help. Carmellini and Grafton gradually come to learn that the archivist has information regarding a KGB operation that involved the use of an individual who is now in the highest levels of the United States government, an individual with the power, and the desire, to stop the information of his traitorous activities from ever being revealed. The pursuit of Carmellini and the archivist leads from West Virginia through the mean backstreets of Washington, D.C., all the way to a political convention held in New York City where Carmellini plays a dangerous game that involves discovering the identity of his pursuer while trying desperately to stay alive.

LIARS & THIEVES has little of the military derring-do of Coonts's previous works; readers who have not previously treated themselves to a Coonts thriller should definitely pick up this one, which is closer to James Bond than Jack Ryan in spirit. Coonts continues his practice of using "real world" situations as a basis for his plots, using The Venona Papers and the political aspirations of presidential spouses as plot devices, and it's great fun to figure out who is who in Coonts's fictitious world. If Coonts is intending to pass the torch from Grafton to Carmellini, LIARS & THIEVES bodes extremely well for Coonts's future projects.

--- Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub

It's as interesting as enjoyable when a successful author branches his characters out. Naturally, 'if done well' is the caveat.

Mr. Coonts does an admirable job here making the young, wisecracking Tommy Carmellini the bedrock about which to build "Liars and Thieves." Kind of like an offshoot of successful television series in the '70's, Michael Connelly did this with the Harry Bosch and Terry McCaleb books.

This is a pretty good story reminiscent of a great old movie, "3 Days of the Condor," where a CIA agent returns from buying coffee and donuts for his colleagues in a 'safehouse' (in the Robert Redford role) only to find every one of his colleagues has been murdered in the 15 minutes he was on the 'donut run.'

Here Tommy Carmellini is assigned guard duty at a CIA safe house only to stumble upon the killing of all of the occupants. The story starts off with a bang along with the natural, "why?'

That Mr. Coonts keeps this from us for several hundred pages is a pretty good indication of the level of his skill. As I read along getting into the 300's, I still wasn't certain how he was going to tie it all together. Really, quite an interesting read that is a good mystery/airplane/train/beach/summertime novel.

Detracting from it were little oddities that I found . . .well, odd. It seems believable that the CIA would hire ex-felons to do their undercover/confidential informant work. I have trouble believing they would hire two of them and put them on the weekly payrole in their own offices inside the CIA castle.

Secondly, for a guy who professes love for a former colleague as much as Tommy does, he sure sleeps around a lot. I have no problem with that. It just seems Mr. Coonts is appealing to conflicting sides of individual natures.

The character of Tommy Carmellini is complex and he's a nice adjunct to the "tough as a two dollar steak" loyal Navy Vet, Jake Grafton. But, how can I say this? In "Liars & Thieves," he's on his own. Maybe he should be more focused and less like a fraternity boy. A fraternity boy with an M-5 automatic rifle. 4 Stars. Recommended. Larry Scantlebury

I'm a Stephen Coonts fan. While his novels have varied in quality from time to time, he's always been a satisfying read - until "Liars & Thieves." I don't know what the problem is. Were creditors beating on Coonts' door and he had to rush something out? Does he have a contract with a publisher he doesnt like and thought a turkey might get him out of it? Did he simply have a bad couple of days?

The plot and characters have been reviewed here so I won't repeat what others have already said. My criticism is that the Tommy Carmellini character is tissue thin. All the other characters, including the redoubtable Jake Grafton, are transparent, contrived and entirely unbelievable.

You can see where Coonts get his bad guys in this one: parts of Bill and Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, Bruce Lindsey and the late Vince Foster, familiar to any news junkie, are all there. This wouldn't be bad if there was some suspense involved - but there isn't.

Finally the editing and proofreading in this book are abominable.

Despite the unbelievable plot and characters, Coonts' style is intact and this is a quick read. It just isn't a satisfying read. I do hope that this is the exception and not a precursor of things to come. In any event, when the next Coonts novel appears, I will snap it up. I just hope it won't be as disappointing as "Liars & Thieves."

Jerry