As a result of my computer that I usually work on is not working properly (what else is new!), so I can’t get on line to write, I have spent most of the last two nights reading and finishing book 21 for the year The Coil by Gayle Lynds. This is the first novel that I’ve read by Lynds whose books are well respected and have won numerous awards. From her website:
Her first Gayle Lynds novel MASQUERADE, was a New York Times bestseller and a People magazine “Page-Turner of the Week.” Publishers Weekly, the bible of the industry, recently compiled a list of the best espionage fiction. At the top were works by le Carre, Ludlum, Frederick Forsyth, and Graham Greene. MASQUERADE was number eight, following Ken Follett’s classic The Eye of the Needle, which Gayle loves.
Other of her novels have been prize winners. THE LAST SPYMASTER won Best Novel from both the American Authors Association and the Military Writers Society of America. THE COIL won Best Contemporary Novel from Affaire de Coeur. MOSAIC was Thriller of the Year at Romantic Times. MESMERIZED was a Daphne du Maurier Award finalist. About her work reviewers have written: “superb,” Chicago Tribune; “immensely satisfying,” Wall Street Journal; “a potent storyteller,” Denver Post; “teeth-grinding suspense,” Publishers Weekly; “roller-coaster thrills,” Los Angeles Times; “terrific,” Cosmopolitan magazine; and “authentic,” Chicago Sun-Times.
The Coil revolves around Liz Sansborough again from Gayle’s website:
Liz Sansborough thought she had left her past behind forever. A former CIA field operative as well as the daughter of perhaps the most notorious Cold War assassin — the man known to the world only as the Carnivore — Liz is now a university professor in Southern California, specializing in the psychology of violence. Then her dead father’s legacy sweeps back to overtake her.
Someone, somewhere, is claiming to possess the Carnivore’s secret files and is using information from them to blackmail prominent world figures to promote some clandestine agenda. Files that Liz swore her father never kept. When Liz’s cousin is kidnapped, the only ransom they’ll accept is the assassin’s records, and if Liz is to save her cousin, she must somehow resurrect her old tradecraft skills and, in a desperate hunt across two continents, locate the files and uncover a dark and dangerous conspiracy linked to a shadowy group known only as the Coil.
I enjoyed the book and the characters. I thought the first half of the book was a little confusing until you got to know all of the players. Since both sides appeared to be after or controling Liz’s attempts to find the files, you didn’t know whose side sone of the chasers were on! But once things were better established the book moved quickly and
I finished the second half on two nights! Now I have to go back and read The Masquerade which was the story of Liz and her father “The Carnivore” an assassin who killed for good reasons. (kinda like Dexter) And I know I will read more of her books!