Customer Reviews

Masquerade

5 star:		(26)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(10)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I received this book as a advanced reader copy when I was a manager of a bookstore. Having nothing else to read while riding the bus home, I took the copy with me and finished it within two days! The plot was intense, leaving you guessing what was happening next. In this day and age of the BIG authors pounding out books for bucks, Masquerade is a refreshing change. The characters are believable, not the cardboard cutouts that you find so often in this genre. Her (Gayle's) descriptive qualities give you an almost photographic detail of the settings and the people in the story. The last few chapters of this novel leave you sweating, gasping, and biting your fingernails to the quick! If you read only one novel in the next year, let it be this one. You won't be disappointed.

The International Thriller genre has historically been dominated my male writers (some of my favorite authors as a matter of fact). David Morrell, Tom Clancy, Frederick Forsyth, David Baldacci, and others. A few years ago I noticed that Gayle Lynds had cowritten a few books with the great Robert Ludlum (the "Bourne" series). Since then, she has started writing solo novels and this one is simply a masterpiece. Non-stop action, a gripping plot, writing that is well-structured but not over the top, and characters you can understand.

As the storyline plays out, you often find yourself wondering where it will go next...and the unexpected turns just add to the thrill ride. A perfect read for a long weekend or a plane ride because you will not want to put it down!

Had I not read The Hades Factor, co-authored by Robert Ludlum and Gayle Lunds, I doubt I would have even looked at this book. But I am a longtime Ludlum fan and decided that if he could share authorship with Gayle Lunds then it was worth the chance. What a great book! I love amnesia stories, and spy thrillers, and Masquerade combines both. This was a real page-turner in the Ludlum tradition. This was a powerful and compelling story - as well as a great start for a new novelist!

I guarantee you won't be able to put this book down. You get caught up in the mystery from page one. The female heroine, Liz Sansborough, awakes not knowing who she is. There's a handsome guy taking care of her, and she discovers he's with the CIA. Eventually, she figures out her identity, but by then she's learned all the deadly skills of a top CIA agent. She has to incorporate her new identity with her old one to figure out what's happened to her and why, and to stop the villain. He's about to break the Bank of France and walk away with a billion dollars, which will shake the financial markets of the world. And there's a U.S. government "black" program in mind control that's based on an actual one that was supposedly shut down in the 1970s. "Masquerade" keeps you up until 3 a.m. because you'll want to know what happens next. Really.

For a keen insight into the sometimes irrational,
always quirky, and latent danger of the spy,
counter-spy genre, as well as a chilling insight into our
hedged, if not hopeful attraction to all that,
read this spy novel about a fictional woman spy, (there are plenty)
by a woman who has done just enough homework to let
the fiction carry the story. You'll be challenged just
to keep track of yourself while reading it.

Gayle Lynds is on her way up, and, unlike many
others adhering to this genre, Gayle's plot
is alive and treacherous. It is not just another
dry, though complex empty category into which she pours
empty, if hyperactive characters. You may not know which
way is north, which way in home, safely back
to your desk, or porch, or reading room.
You may lose track of who you, yourself are, until
you finish the book. One thinks of
Le Carre updated by Clancey.

I read the book straight through. I tried to put it down,
but I could not sleep. Like thrillers? Here's one
with a special woman's tase of evil, and a
thoughtful woman's brand of intelligence.

I look for suspense novels with female protagonists, so I was excited to find Masquerade. After reading it for a while I became increasingly disappointed. The writing was at best pedestrian, but that's often to be expected in a mass marketed book. More disappointing was the plot that was predictable from a mile away. I kept reading, hoping there would be a twist at some point that I wasn't expecting, but my hopes were crushed. The book was incredibly formulaic, right down to the requisite scene with the characters lustfully ripping each other's clothes off for a night of passion.

The book was just plain dumb. Spend your money elsewhere.

The protagonist of Gayle Lynds' thriller Masquerade has lost her memory. Unable to recall even her name, she knows only as much of her past as her caretaker Gordon tells her: she is his fiancee, Liz Sansborough, a retired CIA agent who has been living under cover as a journalist and who is being targeted by one of the world's deadliest assassins, the Carnivore. Liz's reactions when under attack, she finds, are indeed those of a trained operative, but her occasional near memories don't correspond with what she's been told. Her hunt for her identity takes Liz away from Gordon's grasp, finally, and into the thick of a dangerous game of international intrigue in which identifying the bad guys is hard, and outrunning them even harder.

Masquerade, if not unputdownable, is a decent thriller with transparent prose and a likeable protagonist (who figures also in Lynds' more recent novel The Coil). The book unfortunately ends on a disappointing note, with a final chapter that strains credibility, but I would nonetheless enjoy reading more from this author.

Reviewed by Debra Hamel, author of Trying Neaira: The True Story of a Courtesan's Scandalous Life in Ancient Greece

I checked this book out from the library yesterday and to my surprise this old guy who worked there told me it was one of his favorite books, that he'd read it several times.

"What's it like?" I asked.

"Sort of a cross between THE BOURNE IDENTITY and SEE JANE RUN, if you know what I mean."

I did indeed know what he meant. Jason Bourne (who probably everybody knows about now because of the hugely successful movie) and Jane Whittaker are two of my all time favorite characters from two of my all time favorite books. To be compared with Robert Ludlum (who Ms. Lynds would later write with) and Joy Fielding is an honor of the first order, but it also sets up high expectations. After that kind of billing I was ready for a rock 'em, sock 'em thriller that would leave me bleary-eyed as I stumbled into bed at two in the morning. I'm hear to tell you I was not disappointed, though I was not bleary-eyed, because this book kept me on the edge of the sofa and on the edge of reality all night long as my fingers blistered through the pages. When I'd finished my adrenaline was pumping, my eyes were wide open and I'd bitten off a couple nails. It was as if I'd had a dozen cups of coffee without anything to eat.

So what was it about this five star book that got and kept me so excited? A whole lotta stuff. Every time I thought I had a handle on where it was going, the story twisted down the least expected of paths, pulling me along like a fish in the line. Yes, I'm a sucker for a strong female protagonist, I'm also a sucker for a good story and you get both here, but you get so much more, like turncoat bad guys that get you so emotionally involved that you'd like to squash them like a bug, like a bad guy turned good over love who winds up dead of account of it and, after you've wiped away the tears, you gasp in horror at what happens to his lover. You get to see a rummy drunk, who'd been beaten down over the years by a despicable husband, overcome her addiction, throw her shoulders back and save the day. You get to see justice and you get to smile as our heroine squashes some of those bugs.

But there is still more. This is a story about a young woman who wakes one morning not knowing who she is, ala Jason Bourne and Jane Whittaker, but because it's about a woman who is apparently suffering from amnesia, please don't think it's a clichéd story, because it's not. As I said above, this story, Liz Sansborough and Sarah Walker's story, will take you to the most unexpected places, get your blood running, your pulse racing and your adrenaline rushing as you read the night away to an exciting, thrilling and fulfilling climax. And then you'll what to do just what I'm going to do, you'll want to go out, get and read MOSAIC, the Gayle Lynds book that comes after MASQUERADE.

Reviewed by Vesta Irene

What a dance we are led on with this novel! Twist and turn spy fiction at its best - what a great first novel. I couldn't stand to put it down and eagerly await her second novel.

This book is by far one of the best novels that I have read in my life. I started one rainy morning at my father's cabin by the river and before I knew it, I was done. The book held every shread of my attention and kept me guessing the whole way through. I have recommended it highly to all my friends. I am in the police line of work and I have learned a lot from this book on how people can be located and followed. It keeps you on your toes in a since that it does not let you forget how vulnerable you are.