Customer Reviews

Stone Dancer (Windsor Selections)

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Murray Smith's 1994 spy thriller is still a good read, but it was never a great one. British spy David Jardine saves the world by stopping a couple of disaffected spies --Israeli and Russian-- who turned to large-scale financial fraud. The plot is pretty good, as Jardine runs around in Beirut and Moscow and New York and lots of moving parts and loose threads get neatly tied up in the end. The problem is that Smith sometimes gets out ahead of himself and loses touch with reality. He uses all the old tried and true catch-phrases --writing about the "spy game" (can you imagine any spy calling it that? ) and calling the CIA "the Company". He also has some research breakdowns, saying "the Croatian Army" shelled Dubrovnik when it was the Serbs; having Led Zeppelin blaring during the 1968 Tet Offensive (Led Zep's first album came out in 1969). Just small stuff like that to make you feel like the author was just sort of wingin' it. He also tries too hard with the protagonist, David Jardine, who is alternately world-weary, a one-man army, a fantastic lover, a quoter of Shakespeare, getting too old for the "spy game", more clever by half than his bosses... well, you get the picture. Finally, the author, a British military man by background, stumbles when he tries to use American dialect and phrases, with the result being an odd mixture of British-Americanisms that makes you feel like you're watching an Austin Powers movie.

Not really a bad book, just sort of hastily written. Par for the course for the espionage genre, a good read but not lasting litereature.

Not sure why Amazon insists on listing the author as "Tom" Smith. Hello !! The author is Murray Smith. Thanks !

While this book is not the taut thriller its predecessor "Devil's Juggler" was, it certainly stands out from the crowd of rather bland post-cold war spy novels. We see the world of David Jardine a little more intimately this time. His characterization, as well as that of Nancy Lucco is perhaps the strength of the work.

This fast paced novel is based around the SIS's David Jardine. A return performance, first seen in the 'Devil's Juggler'. This time he has a desk job, but must go to Beirut to meet one of his first agents. Where the Mossad tips them that two ex-agents, one from the Mossad and one from the now non-existent KGB, are running large counterfit stings that appear to be leading to the destabalization of a major world currency.

Jardine is the centeral character, and he interfaces with agents of the Mossad, ex-KGB, SIS and various US angencies. He tries and track down these two criminal masterminds before they can do any real damage. He is not always ahead of these criminals. And it makes for an exciting geopolitical adventure.