FREE FALL
By Kyle Mills
HarperCollins, 392 pages, $25
`Free Fall,” Kyle Mills’ third political thriller featuring FBI agent Mark Beamon, is an explosive addition to the genre.
Beamon has been suspended and given three weeks to decide whether to plead guilty to obstruction of justice charges or face prosecution. He breaks up with his girlfriend and accepts a $300,000 commission to hunt down rock climber Darby Moore, whose former boyfriend Tristan Newberry has been found murdered in her van in West Virginia.
However, Beamon doesn’t know that Newberry was killed because he had found a top-secret file called Prodigy that had been buried in a government warehouse since J. Edgar Hoover’s death. The file contains documented evidence of indiscretions of young men Hoover thought might become powerhouses someday. One of those men wants the file at any cost.
Beamon follows Moore to Thailand, where she has been put in jail when another friend is murdered. Beamon helps her get away, but once back in the United States Moore escapes and Beamon is hot on her trail as other trackers hunt them both. More of her friends are killed, and eventually Moore must trust Beamon to stay alive.
Taut, fast-paced and full of likable characters, “Free Fall” is a well-crafted thriller by a young writer who shows great potential.
DOUBLE SHOT
By Raymond Benson
G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 258 pages, $23.95
“Double Shot,” the latest attempt to resurrect Ian Fleming’s James Bond franchise, is so bad that author Raymond Benson should be put in solitary confinement and forced to watch “Barney” 24 hours a day for the rest of his natural-born life.
Bond has been on medical leave for three months and is champing at the bit to get back to work and hunt down the leaders of the criminal group that calls itself the Union. Never mind that Bond is having migraines and blackouts. The pain gets so bad that he finds out where his doctor is dining, follows her home and begs for medication to get rid of the headaches.
They have sex, of course, and he eventually wakes up and finds her dead. Not knowing whether he killed her, he dresses and rushes out of the apartment. He doesn’t wipe his fingerprints from the things he has touched, doesn’t hunt for the missing buttons off his shirt. James Bond would not be this stupid.
I could go on and give you the basic outline of this preposterous story, but I will not insult your intelligence.
