Customer Reviews

The Peregrine Spy

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Amateur is sometimes meant to be a compliment, but that is not this reviewer's intention. The subject matter here, Iran, demands a point, otherwise, this would be a 1. This "novel" reads like an early draft and any editor with her salt would have sent the author back to try 3 more times to get the characters to resemble humans and not convenient mouthpieces to give readers information. I have a 100 page rule with thrillers: if it isn't happenning for you in those 100 pages, it isn't going to happen, so you have the right to put it down and begin another book.

I put this down at Page 98. good title, good subject, good timing for subject, poor execution: slap on wrist for editor, if there was one.

Murray's scary and informative thriller casts a searing light on the fuming Islamic world of the Middle East. The book is about a potentially explosive situation stoked by a horribly misguided US administration that is often fed distorted and conflicting information by an intelligence community blind to truth, ignorant of history and more concerned with infighting than creating a secure world.

Is this book about 1978-79, or today?

The large cast is finely drawn, with each character given telling particulars that are often humorous, sometimes biting, but always essential to revealing the inner person and their contorted motives in a fevered, unsettled time.

"Atmospherics" (in CIA parlance) flowing from Murray's pen put the reader right in the gut of Tehran, abundant with a swirl of sounds, smells and flavors that intoxicate the mind trying to figure out who is to be trusted.

Send a copy to your Congressional representative today!

I defer to the other reviewers, who gave 5 stars.
To their reviews I add that this book was so good, I wanted more! To me, that's a sign of an excellent story.
The liner notes on the Hardcover quotes Mario Puzo as saying that Ed Murray is a "born novelist" and Puzo is not exaggerating!
Hopefully, Mr. Murray will give us more of the same in the future!
Thanks for an incredible read; and incredible ride!

This is a spy novel so good that it transcends the genre, the way Scott Turow transcends the legal thriller genre. The writing is superb, the observations and ironies are sublime, and the characters - American, Iranian, and Russian - spring to life with very realistic dialog and subtle depth. The setting is Iran during the transition from the Shah to the Ayatollah, which is very timely considering the transition occurring in Iraq right now. This is not a comic-book, James Bond style spy story, but a very realistic portrayal of how "spies" and intelligence gathering really work. It's especially revealing if you want to understand how the U.S. intelligence community can get it so wrong, even when their agents get it right.

Journalists rarely make good novelists. Neither do spies if they think their material is intrinsically interesting enough to stand by itself. This effort consists of amateurishly written dialogue and leaden story line. Remarkably the author has managed to make a fascinating subject, the Iranian revolution, as boring as reading a telephone directory.

Wow. This wasn't what I expected, after reading most of the other reviews, as well as the laudatory blurbs from folks who should know a good book when they read it. I only made it through a few dozen pages of leaden dialogue among various civil servants before this book went in the charity pile.

I read this at the beach about a year ago. I thought it was a fascinating book. It seemed to be give a more realistic view of how a CIA agent works out of the embassy. The setting is Iran at the time that the Shah is deposed, which to me was a fascinating setting. I also thought it was well written, well paced novel (despite what others have said).

A reader, by any chance is your name Murray?
I did not write this review. Apparently somebody was able to log on as me and write it. Sounds perspicacious, though.

This book is for someone who likes slow-going, complicated plots and already has a good historical understanding of days of the shah of Iran because the author doesn't give you much historical context. (Eg., the term Savak figures prominently at the beginning of the book but nowhere could I find it defined or described. A Google search told me it had something to do with the Iranian secret police. Should readers have to Google their way through a book?). This is the kind of hard work that this book requires.

Some people like this sort of thing. I don't. Tossed it aside after 50 pages.