Review: Bond would've been bored out of his skull
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 11 11, 2013
As has been admirably noted by at least one other reviewer, DYNAMITE FISHERMEN follows shoes-on-the-pavement CIA agent Conrad Prosser as he performs the nuts-and-bolts duties of his assignment to the American Embassy in turmoil-torn Beirut of the early 1980s, i.e. to gather intelligence and recruit agents. There's no James Bond derring-do here, only the routine, day-to-day efforts to get the job done in hopes of a promotion.I'm old enough to remember the news reports of the violence in Beirut back during those years. The stew of competing factions ‒ Syrians, Palestinians, Lebanese Christians, Lebanese Army, Iraqi and Israeli surrogates ‒ was confusing both then and now, and author Preston Fleming does little to enlighten the casual reader who has no deeper knowledge of the time and place. For him and Conrad, the mess just is.It seems to me a novel ‒ especially a spy novel ‒ should incorporate a plot with some degree of overt conflict between major characters and an escalating tension leading to a resolution. The superb character-driven Smiley novels by John le Carré (Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, SpyandSmiley's People) had that. There's nothing like that here in DYNAMITE FISHERMEN.Fans of this book will say I just don't get it. You're right; maybe I don't. But if I want to read about somebody doing routine tasks, perhaps there's a thriller out there featuring a lead who lays linoleum. Prosser himself was so average and unremarkable a protagonist that I never came to care much about the character or his mission. That, for me, is a serious flaw in any novel.I recognize why some might give DYNAMITE FISHERMEN four or five stars either because it gives an unembellished, unsensationalized portrayal of a craft usually fictionally fraught with guns, babes, chases and close calls for the hero or because it's a sober and realistic picture of a confused time in a venerable Middle-Eastern crossroads. So, I'll just leave it at three non-committal stars and move on.