Like Daniel Silva and Barry Eisler, Greg Rucka is a must-read author by my lights. Any book he writes, I’ll read; his Atticus Kodiak books remain among my favorite thrillers. This book is no exception to that general rule; it’s a terrifc, gritty, dark tale of Tara Chace, a British MI-6 agent from Rucka’s Queen and Country graphic novels. In this book, Chace is assigned to extract the son of the president of Uzbekistan to save his life after his sister mounts a coup attempt against their ailing father. The plot is too complicated for me to describe in detail without giving lots of goodies away; there are some very disturbing things that happen along the way, and to his credit Rucka portrays them not as exigencies– as might Lee Child– but as terrible but necessary steps taken in search of a higher goal. Of course, that leads you to wonder about whether the goal itself is worthwhile, which I think is Rucka’s point.
Highly recommended.
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