Customer Reviews

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As someone with little knowledge of the Kennedy years in the white house, given what we now know of the geo-political climate of the time, this book reads like a genuine, behind-the-scenes look into the Kennedy / Castro conflict. With ingenious characters and subplots, Mr Buckley provides the reader with an immensely entertaining, can't put the book down thriller. Blackford Oakes is a much more believable secret agent than that we are served up in any James Bond movie, more along the lines of a Jack Ryan, tenacious in persuing the aim of his mission. The flow of the story is exquisitely smooth and the surprise plot twists are most intriguing. Could these things have actually happened? Seems credible in hindsight...and a great read!

This Blackford Oakes tale is a notch above Buckley's other books about the indomitable CIA agent, providing some rare (for Buckley) suspense and excitement. Usually Buckley's Oakes thrillers aren't exactly thrilling. They are, rather, Cold War period pieces in which real historical figures prance and parade around the global landscape. Oakes always seems to be there as the Cold War ebbs and flows. In this one, however, there is a compelling plot which moves along nicely and somewhere around the middle of the book, the plot takes off (literally) like a rocket. I found it to be a most satisfying read -- more so than his other Oakes novels.

Chapter after chapter is devoted to Nikita Khrushchev's point of view, or Fidel Castro's, who are as cardboard as you might expect; thus any emotional "through-line" is lost. Blackford Oakes, the hero, shows up so infrequently -- I'd guess we see him in no more than one out of every six chapters. Which makes for a tedious read. Sorry.