Pun Salad

This is the second novel from the indispensible Jim Geraghty. I liked his first one The Weed Agency just fine, and this one is an incredibly good Kindle deal at a mere $3.99. So…

It's a spy thriller, with the heroes being a small CIA group tasked with thwarting the latest terrorist threat. It starts in a Berlin cafe, when a discredited contact warns the beautiful CIA agent Katrina of a mysterious Iranian moving money around, wanting information about planes and chemicals, very worrisome. The contact's credibility goes up a couple notches when he, and most of the people in the cafe get blown up. And when co-agent Alec (who is also Katrina's hubby) goes to check out the contact's apartment, it's on fire. As is the contact's tortured girlfriend.

It gradually develops that the plotters aim to instill massive amounts of fear into the USA. Perhaps involving a nasty drug.

There is a lot of globe-hopping by our intrepid agents to many exotic locales. Many narrow escapes from death. A lot of detective work. Violent confrontations. And some loose ends left at the end. (This is billed as "Book 1" of a potential series.)

Now, it's not perfect. The dialogue is clunky at times. The plot (frankly) strains credulity, and I am a very credulous person when it comes to this genre. And it could have used some professional editing. In Chapter 50, Katrina notices that a camel herder's getup in Turkmenistan looks like a Klan costume. And then, in case we missed it, she makes the same observation in Chapter 56.

But, all in all, a decent read.