****** - Verified Buyer
4.5
Chilling, breathtaking, moving, twisting, eye-opening, stimulating, nerve-wracking, entertaining, challenging, educating, action-packed . . . when it comes to a Gayle Lynds' spy thriller, whatever you can dream up in a literary ride of extreme fascination is what this author delivers. Her "what if" for this book's plot began with an article she read in the "Los Angeles Times " in 1989. Through the next 20 years plus, the mystery of Ivan the Terrible's lost library percolated in the back of her mind to become an obsession she called The Library of Gold. The more she researched it the more it absorbed her. Like Robert Ludlum's conspiratorial elite who lurked through many of his novels, the idea of such a rich and fabled library lent itself to another tale of hidden wealthy powerbrokers manipulating world events to their advantage.The CIA becomes involved when the father of one of its contract agents is murdered. In following up the victim's ties to an elite secret book club of the world's most powerful men, they discover a connection between the group's Library of Gold and a terrorist's bank account. To help, they engage Eva Blake, a rare books curator who has been wrongfully imprisoned for her husband's death. They release her. In the London Museum, while inspecting one of the "lost" books, she spots her husband alive. He turns on her and tries to kill her. Judd Ryder, assigned by the CIA to protect her, learns his recently assassinated father was a member of this secret book club, and in rescuing Eva joins forces with her in a hunt that takes them from London to Rome, Istanbul to Athens, and even into Afghanistan.Unlike "The Da Vinci Code," Gayle does not sacrifice pace to burden readers with heavy-handed history--that she contains in her Author's Notes at the end. Instead, she balances character development, plot, action and international settings with fine-tuned precision. In many current suspense and mystery novels, authors have abandoned the omniscient point of view, so it is a treat to return to the thriller master's technique of setting up each chapter from the long view of the camera to pan into the characters so we instantly see them and then of zooming into the close-up of the scene from the character's POV.In "Book of Spies," Gayle builds characters with idiosyncrasies that evolve from their legends. In this case, her heroine is Eva Blake, a museum curator who specializes in ancient manuscripts. To do such work, she must have a retentive memory and an analytic gift. For her to communicate with her husband in Latin phrases is an intellectual game such vibrant minds relish, if only to serve their own egos. That this becomes her instantaneous style of response is not outside the realm of possibility but rather her norm. She has trained her mind in competition with her husband to use Latin one-liners to express what she observes. That she comes from a poor background where she has learned to survive as a pickpocket only proves how clever people with street smarts actually are when inspired to educate themselves by traditional standards. Once, learning karate was unusual for a young woman but even my twin granddaughters take it today. Young people with a goal are environmentally responsible and health conscious. Thus, Eva comfortably fits into our modern concept of an ambitious heroine. For Judd Blake, a former military intelligence officer, her quirks are what attract his respect and enhance his curiosity. She is a challenge that unbolts his guarded control. Spies have intellectual powers and skills few of us develop. Gayle engages us to participate in that world between the pages of the "Book of Spies." This novel ties history to greed, power, terrorism and spy chases. I love it! And to top it all off, Gayle has brought back the Carnivore.
