Customer Reviews

Rift Zone

5 star:		(18)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Being a thriller novel reader, I aways compare books with Clancy's novel; how they pull you in and hold your attention. Well this book did all that and more for me. Not only did it engage me in the story immediately but it held my attention like Clancy. However noted differences dirverge here. Hillhouse provides a genuine suprise chuckle scattered throughout; sometimes at the most inauspicious moment. Whereas most thriller novels, involving obfuscatory Russian names, are difficult to resume and keep everyone straight, given the inevitable family diruptions, Hillhouse has a way of presenting that I found eased me back into the story and characters without having to regroup and glance back to keep eveyone identified. This was a totally unexpected storyline. A female heroine. Just the right amount of everything here, except.......when's the sequel out?

The action of Rift Zone moves rapidly from one peril to the next with interwoven schemes by the heroine, Faith, to checkmate her adversaries. The plot is well structured utilizing the author's knowledge of Germany and Russia to make several dynamic scenes seem plausible. International consequences with probable nuclear war is expected unless Faith and her two associates can thwart the plans of a group of high ranking East German and Russian conspirators. One of these associates is a highly capable lesbian lieutenant colonel in the Russian Service whose motivations are not certain until late in the book. The other associate is a past lover who is an American demolition expert. Finally, the confrontation with the conspirators results in the resolution of a mystery, who is/was Faith's father (a clue is given earlier), and leads to an exciting climax culminating in an unexpected scene at the end.

Le Carre lives in a woman's body. This author knows her territory and it shows. She brings us in to the pre glasnost world in East Berlin and immerses us in a complex thriller/mystery. An easy read that I couldn't put down once I got past the first 60 pages. The first pages aren't bad, it's just it took a while to get into the characters. A great first novel.

RIFT ZONE opens as Faith Whitney searches for antique china in East Berlin. As she leaves the store with her packages she's told by the manager two men were in the shop earlier asking questions about her. She badly needs a multi-entry visa between Berlin and Russia and in order to get it, is looking to obtain a sponsor as a visiting professor--but we soon find this is only a cover for her real profession. Faith is a double-espionage agent, well-known by insiders, trusted by no one, but highly sought after just the same, simply because she's the best there is and nobody has ever caught her in the act. To further complicate her life, she's trying to find her father while trying to dodge all the people who want to either use her or kill her, and maybe both. At the same time, on another part of the continent, Margaret Whitney heads up an orphanage for Armenian children and fiercely fights to protect them while she smuggles weapons inside of Bibles. Hillhouse has created a riveting story of suspense and adventure drawn from her own background. This, her first novel, covers post-cold war relations and spans the European continent as well as the US. My husband, a real spy thriller buff who normally refuses to read spy thrillers written by women, also read it and said this book is great. He's right, it is. RIFT ZONE, is interesting, intense and frightening; a real sink-into-it-and digest-it thriller.

Good spy are tough to write especially with the decline of the cold war. The novels that dealt with the cold war have been done many times before by such writers as John LeCarre (writing a more literary book) and Len Deighton (writing in the thriller subgenre). Really good ones are tough to find. Therefore, it is almost astonishing to read a breathtakingly accomplished spy novel by a debut author- both insightful and realistic.
The time is 1989 and the Berlin Wall is about to come tumbling down. Gorbachev fully understands the Communist system has ruined the Soviet Union economically and change is on the immediate horizon. However, not all find the horizon rosy and want to turn back the clocks and seize power. To help accomplish this task the Stasi recruits smuggler Faith Whitney to deliver a package to be used for some unknown purpose. Her payment will be revealing the location of her father she long thought dead. If she fails she will die. Faith wonders just what the package contains. The contents she soon learns could change the course of world events.
Raelynn Hillhouse is a former smuggler, money launderer and rum runner who smuggled contraband through the Berlin Wall. So she knows of what she writes. There is no doubt that this experience gives the book its vital realism. This is, of course, the major strength of the work. This is a long book- actually way too long with a plot that tends to drag at a snail's pace way too frequently. Characters are a bit too wooden and the plot more complex than necessary. There are moments, however, that are as terrifying and exciting as anything in the thriller subgenre (such as an episode on an airline). It is the promise of these episodes and these moments that keep the pages turning. Make no mistake about it, Raelynn Hillhouse is potentially a very bright star in spy fiction. She just needs to tighten things up a bit. Strongly recommended.

Rift Zone is an enormously entertaining book. Set in a pivot point of history, it captures the texture of the moment, with an eye for genuine details of that place and time. The book is populated with interesting characters, and takes the reader for a thrilling ride across the Iron Curtain just as it was crumbling. It's great escapist fare, highly recommended for summer travel.

Raelynn J. Hillhouse has brought us a spy thriller that brings all the action and suspense of the cold war to life. Each page brings on more interest. I enjoyed the way the book described the different cities and politics of that time. It made me feel as if I was standing at the border checkpoints and had all the emotion running through me. Rift Zone is a must read For anyone interested in the cold war or a spy thriller that keeps you involved the whole way through.

The title of this tension-filled and intelligently written debut plays on the fact that the protagonist, Faith Whitney-by her own choice-lives in the no man's land between the major political powers. The tale of Faith takes place in 1989, the moment it becomes clear that the Berlin Wall, and with it the Iron Curtain, will no longer serve their intent of trapping people in an ideology - literally and figuratively. Now I was born in 1958 and I can't remember anything about the construction of the Wall. However, I can remember that in 1989 I sat for days in front of the television watching how the Wall was demolished. This book is a must-read for everyone who saw the Wall being built and/or demolished.



Faith grew up with a mother who was a fanatical Bible-smuggler. Her "missions" took her all over the world, dragging little Faith with her. Faith doesn't know who her father is. Her mother refuses to tie up this loose end. However, Faith still has a scrap of paper on which her father has scribbled something. She draws consolation from this as needed. And this is frequently the case needed because Faith has a very bad relationship with her mother because of her ghastly youth. And as an art smuggler, she doesn't have it so easy....

On one lousy day, Faith has to decide whether or not she'll work for the notorious Stasi. However, to do this would betray her own independence and neutrality. Not to cooperate is asking for a quick (or not so quick) death. While she's still considering her options, a KGB colonel who tries to persuade her to become a double agent in the horrendous game the Stasi and KGB are playing approaches her. Erich Honecker, it so happens, has got it in his head to assassinate Gorbachev. You can guess why. Together with her friends and eventually even her ex-fiancé, Faith gets swept up in the political scheming.

Raelynn Hillhouse has, however, written all this in a way that all events are clear and it's told with the requisite tension, sexual zest, and humour. If you're like me, you'll read to the end of this book in one jolt. I compare this debut with the work of Ludlum and Gayle Lynds (although Raelynn not yet as big of a star). Sound research, a smooth pen and a particular feeling for style and drawing characters makes this special book, RIFT ZONE, one that I can recommend to everyone who loves Ludlum or Lynds.

A lot of the hype about this book played up the real world experiences of Hillhouse crossing the border into East Berlin, the female protagonist, and the reinvention of the Cold War genre. This book is all that (some of it astonishingly good), but Rift Zone is more than a spy novel with a fresh hook. Hillhouse's protagonist Faith has a perspective on the Cold War that is unlike anything in spy lit - a clear-eyed ambivalence about east and west combined with an ironic affection for the ridiculous aspects of commie culture. It makes her a believable character, and helps Hillhouse raise the sort of difficult questions about loyalty and integrity that invite comparisons with Le Carre and Graham Greene. I recommend it to anyone who likes those authors, and look forward to future novels from Hillhouse.

This is a lively cold war spy story, well paced, perhaps akin to a Robert Ludlum story though not as carefully crafted. But those who read the jacket reviews and hope for a LeCarre or Alan Furst will be disappointed. Ms. Hillhouse knows her Eastern Europe but the subtlety isn't there; lots of action but not much irony, no real surprises, never the sense that the good guys might lose in the end. If you like spy fiction you should read it; just don't have your expectations set too high.