Review: Incredibly disappointing
Rating: 1 out of 5
Date: 09 10, 2011
This book had a good premise - a retired KGB agent sent from modern Russia to kill a member of the International Monetary Fund.  Unfortunately, the premise was the only good thing about this book, as the characters and situations were simply implausable.  Just before an important vote, a US IMF member is killed by faulty brakes on his brand new Lexus and despite the police being surprised, the incident is treated strictly as an accident! Even the new widow is unbelievably stoic about her husband's death and is more interested in planning the funeral than grieving or questioning. Coincidently, his brother happens to be a retired CIA operative and he alone is suspicious.  Even when a second member of the IMF narrowly escapes a terrorist-style bomb and the brother tries to impress the importance, do the US authorities seem somewhat interested.  Where's Homeland Security, the FBI, even the CIA?Without giving away the whole plot (although it wouldn't be a loss) the story moves to Russia, where the brother, his gutsy girlfriend and the original KGB agent team up to right all wrongs.  The few interesting looks into today's Russia are dwarfed by the repetitive, angst-ridden political intrigue.  If we heard a certain politician was ambitious and ruthless once, we heard it several times.  The chase scenes were yawn-worthy and I found myself paging through to find something of interest.  I kept reading to see when the US would finally show up!  They never did!What a waste of a good premise!