Dead Men Living is an incredibly intriguing book, which demonstrates the conflicts in the emerging UIS, both as to jurisdictional issues and cultural differences. It highlights the changes in the mysterious governmental agencies all countries field, and the impact on them from the cessation of the Cold War. All of these issues are woven into the very clever and complicated plot. Brian Freemantle is using characters from prior books so these people are not particularly well developed. However, they do evolve throughout the book, and a first time reader is able to catch up.
Interesting sidebars are the anecdotes used to describe life in Siberia.
Dead Men Living is a novel that one almost needs a scorecard to keep the many players straight. The novel is choppy in places and scenes jump from one venue to another without any effort to link them. The overwhelming redeeming feature is the originality of this multifaceted plot.