Review: Great Read!
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 04 22, 2014
This is a dystopian novel about a one-time intelligence officer/operative in a new United States.  There has been a second civil war, and out of this emerged a President for Life, an impoverished US, a strong Beirut. In these circumstances, the ex-CIA operative, Linder, agrees, as a member of the Department of State Security, an amalgamation of the CIA, military assets and other intelligence services. At their directive he goes to Beirut after a wealthy insurgent to secure him and his assets. Unlike him, his colleagues are not very honest in their dealings and use their powers and prestige to steal wealth and treasures from overseas insurgents. Linder is betrayed by them and ends up in a Yukon Labor camp gulag where he changes into a sensitive, caring human being, working against the US police state. Throughout his travels, he fights against the state, empathizing with the insurgents, feeling their pain at the current changes in the US. There are stunning, but realistic descriptions of current life and the current world where Lindor lives. The author has definitely made this an engrossing, engaging, realistic book about a future which is not that difficult to picture, based on what we see going around us today. I thoroughly enjoyed this plausible, creative tale, filled with great, well-developed characters and good descriptions of current events and settings. I think anyone who enjoys reading action-filled stories about intelligence or ex-intelligence operatives would enjoy this story.  It definitely brings home a message of what might come to pass one day—though we all hope this does not happen. The ending is rather open, as the reader is left to wonder what will happen next to the main character Lindor and/or this new world. I received this from Library Thing to read and review.