Description de l’éditeur
In the espionage community, Vienna is known as the City of Spies, and Matt Drake is about to learn why in the latest electrifying thriller from the New York Times bestselling author of Tom Clancy Target Acquired and The Outside Man.
When a mysterious walk-in to the US embassy in Vienna claims to have critical information about a Russian intelligence operation, he raises eyebrows. But when he asks for Matt Drake by name and calls himself the Irishman, he gets the DIA’s premier case officer on a one-way flight.
Matt arrives to find Austria’s charming capital lousy with intelligence officers, all swirling around Nolan Burke—a onetime member of the real IRA. But before Matt can debrief Nolan, the Irishman is kidnapped by a Russian direct action team. Now, Matt must find a way to repay the debt of honor he owes Nolan while stopping World War III in the process.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Bentley's middling third thriller featuring DIA case officer Matt Drake (after 2021's The Outside Man) takes Drake to Vienna, Austria, to determine why Nolan Burke, a former IRA militant, asked for him by name at the U.S. embassy. Russian operatives ambush the pair and fatally wound Nolan, but Nolan lives long enough to give Drake information on how to find his son, an unnamed Russian intelligence agent, who later tells Drake about a wayward tactical nuclear device being offered for sale by a Ukrainian arms dealer. As Russian forces mobilize on Ukraine's border, a Ukrainian general, convinced that NATO will kowtow to Russia's dictator and that his own corrupt "movie star president" will be ineffectual, intends to obtain the weapon and free his country of the danger from the Russian Bear. Drake and his team, including battle-hardened Navy SEALs, must prevent the Russian invasion plan from igniting WWIII. Exciting action scenes make up only in part for stock characters, over reliance on coincidence, and quickly abandoned and confusing secondary missions. That this book's picture of conflict in Ukraine little resembles current reality may be the least of its problems.
