Masquerade (Mass Market Paperback)

by Gayle Lynds (Author) "Her past was slipping away..." (more)
Key Phrases: infrared flashlight, second limo, international assassin, Hughes Bremner, Sarah Walker, Liz Sansborough (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review
Liz Sansborough wakes up one morning in a house she doesn't know, with a man she doesn't know, unable to remember her own name or anything that has ever happened to her. Already terrified, she is almost instantly plunged into incredible danger -- and discovers that she's a crack shot and a CIA employee. She must navigate through a world of corrupt secret agents, international terrorism, and mind-altering drugs without knowing who her enemies are or what the truth is. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly
The publisher's claim that Lynds will be the "first bestselling female author of international suspense" is hollow-and a bit surprising, given that at least one bestselling female author of international suspense, Linda Davies (whose Wilderness of Mirrors is reviewed below), is a fellow Doubleday writer. But Lynds does an admirable job in her debut novel of aping some of the top male international suspense writers of our era, especially early Ludlum, as she tosses into a swiftly moving narrative stream a vast and dangerous conspiracy, an array of improbable coincidences, several rogue government agents, a legendary international assassin (the "Carnivore") and a nearly friendless innocent caught in the middle of it all. Amnesiac Liz Scarsborough awakens to a house and husband she can't remember, to be told that she's an ex-CIA agent who has been living in hiding from the Carnivore. Liz believes that story for only a little longer than readers will, and she soon finds herself on the run from a gallery of threatening figures, heading for Paris in the company of a very neatly introduced fellow agent and incipient love interest. The resourceful heroine is captured but escapes, is recaptured but escapes again, in a dizzying sequence of action scenes that eventually involves a doppelganger, mind-bending drugs and brainwashing. Thriller fans may not find plausibility in Lynds's first, but they certainly will find the sort of teeth-grinding suspense that they crave. Major ad/promo; author tour.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 480 pages
• Publisher: St. Martin's Paperbacks (February 3, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312986033
• ISBN-13: 978-0312986032
• Product Dimensions: 6.7 x 4.2 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (46 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #343,099 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fast paced rollercoaster ride!, September 12, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Masquerade (Paperback)

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.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Lynds takes a well used plot device and makes it her own, May 24, 2004

By	Joe Sherry (Minnesota) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

It was interesting reading "Masquerade" after Gayle Lynds' latest novel "The Coil". What makes it interesting was that "The Coil" was the sequel "Masquerade" and followed some of the same characters that we first meet in "Masquerade". Knowing who the characters are in the second book changed how I viewed them in the first book. This knowledge actually made things more confusing because things did not at first add up. "Masquerade" marked Lynds' first steps into the international spy novel genre, and she gives us a strong, fresh entry.

The idea of a character having amnesia and having to figure out who she (or he) is has been done before in the spy genre (most notably with Ludlum's "Bourne Identity"), but this is the starting point for "Masquerade". Liz Sansborough has no memory of who she was or what she did. All she knows is that a man named Gordon Taite claims to have been her lover and that Liz is a former CIA agent. Gordon claims to be trying to protect her, and he seems honest, but Liz feels that Gordon is hiding the truth from her. Can she believe him? Was she really a CIA agent? Who is she?

With violence and these questions, we are jumpstarted into "Masquerade". It would not be hyperbole to say that Gayle Lynds has written a novel that feels like a race to find out who Liz Sansborough is and why these men are trying to kill/capture her. This is fast paced espionage action with a high body count, and it is an engaging novel all the way through. It seems like a simple enough story at the beginning, but as Liz learns more about who she is and why she is being hunted, the scope of the story expands in ways the reader never expected (or, in ways I never expected). Reading "The Coil" first did not lessen the impact of "Masquerade" in any way, but rather it added to the challenge of piecing together bits of the story and what I knew about the characters in "The Coil". I may not read many espionage novels, but I know an entertaining, well written story when I see one.

-Joe Sherry

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Wonderfully compelling and action packed, March 31, 2004

By	Alan M. Wells (Marietta, GA United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Think of the reactions that you might have if you realized that part of your memory was gone - via a mind/personality-altering chemical - and that you were suddenly facing daily life-threatening situations as part of a surreptitiously-hatched international scheme. It's only the beginning in Masquerade, where action and intrigue abound in this intricately composed thriller, which is also infused with emotional and familial attachments that lie at the heart of the story.

A young woman discovers herself involved with people and situations that are unrecognizable as part of her previous life, and must rely on her intuition and physical and mental instincts to find out for herself what is true and not true, and who she should and should not trust. All the while she is battling threats to her mental and physical well-being and fighting to protect the lives of those who can help her.

The author provides a wide range of non-stop action for the story's backdrop, featuring diverse locales and situations - from foreign politics to domestic espionage. It interlaces concurrent events at different locations to take the reader through a complex maze that leads to a sinister international conspiracy, in which the story's protagonist finds herself square in the middle.

Masquerade is about one woman's ability and determination to discover the truth about herself by overcoming personal challenges and powerful, organized forces that seem utterly unstoppable. It portrays the resiliency and fortitude of character; of being able to face and respond to very difficult and dangerous situations, and ultimately to do what one's conscious determines is right.