Date first published	20/08/2001
ISBN Number	0 00710168 6
Page Count	400 hb
h/b= hardback : p/b= paperback

Storyline

Lt. Colonel Jon Smith, currently working as a medical researcher, is contacted by a Russian colleague with an urgent request that they meet in Venice in ten days. When they meet, however, his colleague is killed almost instantly in a hail of automatic gunfire but not before he passes on to Smith the vital intelligence - someone is out to steal Russia's store of the smallpox virus.

Completely irradicated, smallpox is the deadliest of viruses and could well cause an epidemic of unheard of proportions should it be unleashed on the population at large. Smith, with the help of his colleagues at Covert-One, must prevent the virus from being stolen. But his adversaries are several steps ahead of him and now he must find and stop the conspirators before they loose Armageddon upon the world.

Review

The second of the Covert One series and written by a different author.

The book is Ok. Not brilliant, and not bad either. Like Hades Factor, it follows the path of Jon Smith, who is in pursuit of a group of unknown people intent on developing a bio-weapon.

If anything the book suffers from being too close to the Hades Factor, which is perhaps more noticeable if you read them together as I have done. Like Hades, the main protagonists, are a mixture of businessmen, and military personnel, who believe that they are doing it for patriotic reasons. The businessmen are of course in it for the money.

We have a suitable nasty group of villains, whether it is the cold blooded Reed, or Baur, down to the main enforcer Ivan Beria (named after the infamous Lavrenty Beria of the NKVD?). Beria is not Russian but a Croat, so I assume that back in 2001 when the book was written they must have featured strongly in the news. Beria is the only one of the bad guys to survive, but his fate may have been worst - carted off to Russia for questioning.

We learn very little about Jon Smith, presumably because the second author doesn't have much scope to expand on him, in case it brings problems for the next novel. However there has been a thaw in relations with Randi Russell, who has just been posted to Moscow.

As I stated the book is to close to Hades. In that story Smith loses is fiancee, to the deadly plague being developed. This time he has a close friend, in mortal danger. Although this time he manages to save her.

To sum up an average story. I get the feeling that if Ludlum had been around either Hades or Cassandra would have been written, and the other left to moulder away, never to see the light of day. I'm not sure what the link to the mythical Cassandra is. She was cursed, but with nothing more than the loss of her power to persuade. Can you work out the link?

An average book. A light read in between something wore weighty.

Previous	Index	Next