But instead he finds a catharsis of sorts and throws himself into a new case.  Accusations of treason and treachery are once again bringing chaos and destruction to the clandestine services section of the CIA.  A retired and beloved code-breaker has been murdered in a particular gruesome fashion.  And Dalton’s superior, head of clandestine ops, Deacon Cather is under suspicion of being a mole. Meanwhile, Dalton’s old nemesis Kiki Lujac is either dead or at the center of this new conspiracy.

To solve the mystery Dalton will have to survive long enough to find the answers.  Doing so will take him from Venice to Greece, Turkey, and eventually back to Langley. The answers are tied up in the seemingly ancient history of the Cold War, but they will have deadly repercussions if left unchecked.

Fans of Stone and Dalton will enjoy the latest adventure with its typical blend of action, intrigue, violence, and tongue-in-cheek type gallows humor.  The plot is a bit convoluted, but it is an entertaining read and there is a thread of political commentary running throughout for those who understand the debates involved.

More below (including “spoilers”). 

As with all of Stones novels (see here and here), there is a lot going on.  Stone likes to have numerous subplots and side characters.  But when you get down to it there are really only two threads and one over-arching mystery.  The over-arching mystery is whether or not there is a mole in the CIA and, if there is, who?  The key term here is “confusion op” which sets up a sort of twist at the end.

This basic question, however, is not obvious from the start.  Only as as events play out, and details are added piece by piece, do you get to see the question at the heart of the story.  Stone’s love of complicated plot got away from him a bit here.  At times readers can lose track of what the plot really is about.

There are, however, two entertaining story lines that come together to power the story.  One involves Dalton’s search for explanations into two things: the grissly murder of the retired codebreaker in London and the supposed death of Kiki Lujac.  This is really the action thread.  Dalton is his usual calm, cool, and deadly self as he attempts to figure out who us behind things.

One nice side character is Dobri Levka a Latvian soldier of fortune type who gets caught up in Dalton’s investigation.  But just as Dalton is about to clean up this particular mess, Levka makes the unconventional offer of helping Dalton.  Suprised by the quick thinking Dalton accepts.  And Levka turns out to be loyal despite the fact that Dalton killed his uncle (well, he was an angry ugly drunk, says Levka).

Levka adds a playful sense to the story and makes for a good sidekick for Dalton.  The two men’s sense of humor work well together.  And who couldn’t use a little extra muscle who happens to speak a number of languages and knows the terrain?

The second thread involves Lujac and the head of the codebreakers section Briony Keating.  This is the suspense side of the thread.  Stone plays out the relationship between Lujac and Keating for as long as he can all the while slowly filling in the backstory that connects them to the larger mystery.  This aspect is well done.  It really makes you want to keep reading.  And it even provides the final bit of gallows humor at the novel’s end.

Tied into all of this with varying degrees of success are the Venona transcripts and the question of Soviet spies at the highest levels of American government during the Cold War.  The mole question revolves around whether a highly placed aide to President Nixon gave information to the Soviets which allowed them to supply the North Vietnamese and help them retake the South knowing that Watergate would prevent Nixon/Ford from responding with the force that had brought the North to the negotiating table.

The subject of Soviet spies in American government has of course been the subject of a great deal of debate as has the nature of the Vietnam conflict and its conclusion.  Stone is clearly on the side of significant penetration of American government by the Soviets and seems to be arguing, at least through his characters, that this espionage combined with the fatal weakening of Nixon led to the collapse of Vietnam and the devastation that followed. In other words, the military did their part but the civilians did not.

This is not all that surprising 1) a great deal of work has been done in this area since Cold War era records have slowly been opened up and the records have been on the side of the former “McCarthyites” more often than not.  2) Stone has given hints of his Right leaning perspective throughout the series with quips about liberal political leaders, etc.

At times this historiographical element adds a layer of suspense/intrigue but others it seems like a distraction; another layer on an already complex story. I also wonder if readers who know nothing about this history, and the debates surrounding them, will understand what is going on.

As noted above, however, fans of Stone and Dalton will want to read this latest adventure.  And to my mind Stone has gotten better with each book.  Dalton may be a typical unstoppable super-spy but he has a certain style and wit which makes for a nice twist.

And while Stone’s plots are always complex, some might say convoluted, I find them entertaining.  And I found The Venetian Judgment to be the most suspenseful and fast paced of the three.  If you are willing to suspend your disbelief (par for the course in this genre), and don’t mind high levels of violence, this series is certainly worth a read.  As we head into spring and summer, they make great beach and/or airplane reading.

Note: while they are stand alone books in theory, I recommend reading the three books in order.  Dalton and the side characters will make a lot more sense that way.

How much violence and brutality is too much and how much adds a entertaining sharp edge to a thriller?  This is not an easy question to answer unless you are one of those people on the extremes who enjoys either none at all or an unlimited amount.

It is also tricky because it depends on both the reader’s tastes and the author’s skills. Some authors can make a violent story darkly beautiful while some make the same level of violence seem over-the-top.

As you might have suspected, I bring this up in relation to the David Stone thriller series featuring Micah Dalton.  I reviewed the first book (The Echelon Vendetta); just finished the second book (The Orpheus Deception); and I am planning to tackle The Venetian Judgment soon.

This is an often violent, and at times gruesome, series.  Stone seems to like villains whose souls are twisted beyond recognition and who therefor do some very nasty things.  The hero must both escape being given this treatment, but also stop a larger threat to US national security.

This time it involves some sort of chemical weapon, a stolen tanker, a former colleague sent to the infamous Changi prison in Singapore, and Dalton’s Balkan crime lord nemesis.

Stone manages to pull all these threads together and weave a suspenseful, action filled, and entertaining plot.  I found the second book had a consistent vibe of black humor which I enjoyed but, like many in the genre, it is quiet violent and often strains credibility.  It also barely qualifies as a stand alone work.  If you haven’t read the first book it is difficult to fully enjoy this one.

Further thoughts below.  There are really three issues that negatively impacted my enjoyment:

1. The aforementioned violence.
2. The often rambling nature of the story.
3. The ending was weak.

On #1, I found Stone always walking up to the limit of the violence I would tolerate.  I never found the violence or brutality offensive or so over-the-top I stopped reading.  But on the other hand, much of the violence struck me as unnecessary.

One of the characters, Kiki Lujac, is clearly a brutal sadist who lacks the ability to feel human emotions and so seeks out extremes.  And in some ways he is an interesting side character in the story.  But he also drags the story down when he is hunting Dalton and/or torturing his latest victim.  Stone is careful to tie things into the larger plot but it just adds to the bulkiness of the novel.  Take a few of these type of scenes out and the book is both less violent and a tighter read.

And this leads right into #2.  Stone can’t seem to help filling the plot with side characters and subplots.  The novels sometimes seem almost more like a continuing series of episodes than a traditional novel.  And the second book is busier than the first.

Micah is on the run from the CIA because of the events that ended the first book when he is given a chance to get back in their good graces by taking on a rescue operation.  And it just so happens that this case connects both with a larger threat to the US but also to his connection with the Serbian mob and the Italian Carabinieri.  So you have a series of events playing out in Italy, Serbia, Singapore, and the United States.

But Stone keeps adding things.  Micah returns to Italy to be with Cora and gets nearly fatally stabbed.  He also has a dream in which he converses with the Ghost of Porter Naumann which factored heavily into the first book.  Dalton and his colleague also have a run-in with the authorities in Singapore that seems convoluted and almost unrelated to the plot.  A particularly brutal scene in the Gulf of India is also only tangentially related to the plot. And the Kiki character is always dropped in for a few scenes weather it moves the plot forward or not.  Get into trouble, barely escape with your life – rinse and repeat.

As I said, Stone does a pretty good job of tying all of this together; and I did find the action entertaining (and one of the side stories featuring a young NSA monitor was very well done). But if you like tight and fast paced thrillers this episodic nature might turn you off.  It has more of the feel of a longer series where pace is sometimes sacrificed for side characters and stories. (And Stone hasn’t lost his love for descriptive passages of the land and cityscapes the characters encounter around the word.) Its not like 460 pages (in the hardcover) is an epic tome, but it has a density that makes it seem long (at least it did to me).

And appropriately at last, we come to the ending.  The mystery of the ship is the unifying thread for the entire story; it is what ties everything together and provides the climax.  And the tension really builds toward a conclusion on the shores of Lake Michigan in Chicago.

But the conclusion is rather anti-climatic.  Stone has set up the twist that resolves the ending earlier in the story so it isn’t confusing or disjointed but it just falls a bit flat.  After all of the heroic and death defying action Dalton goes through the ending lacks the kick you would like.

One thing that I found made this book more enjoyable, however, was the sense of humor.  I think Stone’s writing is getting better.  This book has a sharp wit – a sort of biting gallows humor – that I liked.

I also found it interesting that Stone’s perspective seems more attuned to a conservative political outlook.  There are various jibes and quips that wouldn’t seem natural coming from a liberal author.  Not surprisingly, PW took a swipe at the “flag-waving patriotism” of the book.  Sheesh, heaven forbid the book not explore the Nazification of the Bush years.  PW also called it a “testosterone filled thriller.”  That is probably more fair.

All in all, the series is interesting and enteratining enough to keep me coming back for more.  It might not be to everyone’s tastes, but for the most part it comes together.   So if you like thrillers with an edge of violence and dark wit then check out David Stone and Micah Dalton.

2009 seems to be the year of the thriller for me.  Once I got started with the genre I just kept finding more to read.  My latest in this vein is a series by David Stone featuring Micah Dalton.  The first in the series is The Echelon Vendetta.

There is a lot going on in this often violent, and at times gruesome, espionage thriller and it isn’t easy to capture it all.  I found the most succinct and accurate summation at Entertainment Weekly of all places:

When a mission goes awry in David Stone’s The Echelon Vendetta, the CIA calls in Micah Dalton, a ”cleaner” who dispassionately mops up the mess. But then a friend and fellow agent dies in an apparent suicide and the pal’s family is found hacked to death. As he follows the trail from Tuscany to London to CIA headquarters to the Rocky Mountains, Dalton encounters government spooks, Native American mysticism, hallucinogens, and gruesome violence with which he seems creepily comfortable. But Stone’s unsettling tale keeps losing momentum, due to his nasty habit of interrupting the action with poetic travelogues at each new stop around the globe.

There are really three threads involved in this story.  The main thread is a rather straightforward, and well done, espionage story.  Dalton has to find out what is behind his friend and colleague’s death.  He eventually finds out that his mystery Native American killer is brutally murdering anyone connected to a mission gone bad on a project called Echelon.  Dalton tracks down the killer, and his true identity, as the bodies pile up.  The tension builds until the two confront each other.  Then Stone throws in a twist at the very end.

A second thread that gives the story a unique feel is the supernatural angle Stone introduces when the murdered man, Porter Naumann, returns to haunt – well, maybe visit is a better term – Dalton along the way.  Stone never quite makes it clear whether this is a result of the hallucinatory drugs Dalton came in contact with or if it is a true supernatural presence.  This also ties into the back story of Dalton’s tragic history and relationship with his wife; which Naumann speaks to Dalton about on a couple of occasions.

And the third aspect is the “poetic travelogues” EW mentioned above.  These descriptions of the places Dalton visits on his many travels are a blessing and curse.  Many of them are quite well done.  And they – along with Dalton’s educated and sophisticated style – give the writing a more literary feel in places.  But they also slow down the pace and make the book rather bulky.

The question is mostly one of taste and preference.  If you like your thrillers tight and fast paced the digressions and travelogues will be annoying.  If on the other hand you don’t mind a different take, and a few diversions, then you might enjoy them.

As I am wont to do, I found myself somewhere in the middle.  I enjoyed the ghost aspect of the story and appreciated many of the descriptions Stone offered of the wildly different locales.  On the other hand, I did feel the story started to get bogged down at times and it seemed longer than it needed to be.  I tend to like tight and lean thrillers that keep you turning the page. I don’t mind a more literary style , but it should advance the story and/or add a intellectual layer that makes you think.  Sometimes Stone’s prose just seems florid and flashy; like he just enjoys describing the land.

Even with this The Echelon Vendetta is a promising debut and I enjoyed it enough to ensure I will keep reading the series.  The writing is strong and the style just different enough to make it stand out from a genre filled with cookie cutter plots.  And Stone balances the violence and brutality well.  There are some gruesome aspects to it, but I never felt it was overdone.  All in all it has a nice balance of action, description, and surprises.  Plus, the book ends with a cliffhanger aspect so I am eager to find out the fate of Micah Dalton.