The Devil's Shepherd
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- £3.99
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- £3.99
Publisher Description
Israeli Military Intelligence agents Eytan Eckstein and Benni Baum are summoned once more to undertake a mission that could be their last. A defecting Czech spy claims to know the identity of a mole within Israel’s top secret nuclear program, but he has fled to Africa and will only turn over the information if a string of his demands are met. Thus begins “Operation Sorcerer,” a quest to extricate the Czech spy, rescue a throng of desperate refugees, and survive the onslaught of Africa warlords determined to destroy the Israeli heroes.
Steven Hartov was born in the United States and educated at Boston University. After serving in the U.S. Military Sealift Command, he emigrated to Israel and served in the Israel Defense Forces parachute corps and Military Intelligence special operations. He is the author of the espionage trilogy, “The Heat of Ramadan,” “The Nylon Hand of God,” and “The Devil’s Shepherd,” and co-author of the New York Times best seller “In the Company of Heroes” and “The Night Stalkers.” For six years, Hartov helmed “Special Operations Report”as Editor-in-Chief. He currently serves as a Task Force commander in the New York Guard and is writing a new novel.
Readers held in suspense throughout this galloping plot will end with their nails in their mouths, awaiting the next installment.
-Kirkus Reviews
A superb thriller with brains and heart. . . . an electrifying and brilliantly paced book.
-Detroit Free Press
Bursting at the seams with action and intrigue, Hartov’s thriller also boasts great characters… “The Devil’s Shepherd” mixes lessons in world politics with martial arts know-how and intelligence savvy so adroitly that readers will be enjoying themselves too much to realize they may have learned something.
- Missouri Journal Sentinael
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Two battle-weary Israeli intelligence operatives--both on the verge of taking desk jobs--agree to tackle one last mission in this rousing, if overly sentimental, thriller about duty and dirty tricks in the desert. The two superagents, Eytan Eckstein and Benni Baum, accept the assignment to uncover the identity of a mole who has infiltrated Israel's nuclear missile defense system. The mission will force them to slip into Ethiopia to rescue a Czech defector, Jan Krumlov, who promises to divulge the name of the mole. Krumlov, however, has conditions: Eckstein and Baum must first extract his wife from Bosnia, then help him bring 50 Ethiopian Jewish children he's protecting back to Israel. Eckstein and Baum hold up their end of the bargain, but once in Ethiopia, they discover that Krumlov is a much more complicated man, with far more complicated motives, than first believed. He's also wanted dead or alive by a vicious band of Ethiopian rebels who don't care who else might get killed in their manhunt. Hartov, who himself worked in Israeli intelligence, infuses his story with enough realistic detail about espionage and the military to keep the intrigue high. For all its clever twists and high drama, however, the story suffers from bloat. At several points, it bogs down in schmaltzy dialogue and thickly applied subplots about the regrets of career soldiers and their domestic troubles. Eckstein and Baum, returnees from Hartov's previous novels The Heat of Ramadan and The Nylon Hand of God, are solid but predictable heroes. Far more absorbing are some of the story's secondary characters, who show the human side of the dark world of espionage.
