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Fans of espionage novels know Gayle Lynds primarily for her excellent collaborative work with the late Robert Ludlum on the Covert One series of novels, such as THE HADES FACTOR and THE ALTMAN CODE. She is also a novelist in her own right, with her latest work THE COIL being her fourth solo novel. THE COIL stays firmly ensconced in the espionage genre and, while flawed in spots, is ultimately an entertaining and engrossing work.
THE COIL features the return of Liz Sansborough, first introduced in MASQUERADE, Lynds's debut novel. Sansborough is a former CIA agent who has left that life behind, thoroughly satisfied with her quiet but fulfilling existence as a college professor in Santa Barbara. She also quietly lives with the knowledge that her deceased father was a Cold War assassin known as The Carnivore. Sansborough's past and heritage violently intrude into her life when she is attacked and almost killed for no apparent reason. Sansborough's cousin, Sarah Walker, is almost simultaneously kidnapped in Paris in an incident that leaves her husband, CIA Agent Asher Flores, seriously wounded.
The catalyst behind these actions is the existence of files that The Carnivore apparently kept on his employers. Someone is using the information contained in these files to blackmail influential figures and guide their actions toward a secret agenda. The kidnappers want the files in exchange for Walker. Sansborough, meanwhile, has had no idea that her father kept such files and must somehow locate them in order to save her cousin, as well as herself. She finds herself caught between the kidnappers and the blackmailer, who has no intention of giving up the files.
With great reluctance, she returns to the shadowy life of the secret agent, chasing across Europe in an effort to rescue her cousin and uncover the secret behind the files and the blackmailer. Her pursuit leads her to the Coil, a secretive group that quietly influences world events and whose very existence is threatened by the blackmailer --- who is one of their own.
THE COIL is a great novel, although it might have been even better with a couple of modifications. Things get slightly complex here, even for a novel of this genre. Conspiracy novels are, by their nature, complicated, but Lynds occasionally becomes just a bit too clever. There is so much duplicity going around that by the final third of the book one begins to hear, if not see, the gears and pulleys that are supposed to stay hidden, out of sight, behind the curtain. The biggest problem, however, is the heroine herself, who seems more inclined to internally debate whether to pick up a gun and defend herself or join hands with her enemy and sing "Kumbaya." Such debates are better reserved for the abstract, as opposed to the field --- think of James Bond, tied up with a laser beam moving slowly toward his groin, wondering whether laying down his sword would make the world a better place. You get the idea. Aside from straining credibility, these debates, which bypass conflict and head into the land of self-absorption, tend to break up the flow of the narrative and, hence, interrupt the story.
If we should see more of Sansborough in the future, it will hopefully be without the internal baggage. I doubt I'm really giving anything away by revealing that since Sansborough is alive and reasonably happy by the end of THE COIL, she ultimately chooses the course of affirmative self-defense rather than talking her adversaries to death. Notwithstanding these points, however, THE COIL is a worthwhile read from a writer who continues to improve with each novel.
--- Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub
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