Private Wars (Queen & Country Novels) (Hardcover)

~ (Author)
Key Phrases: plasma wall, Deputy Chief, Alison Gordon Palmer, Ruslan Malikov (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Tara Chace, the heroine of Rucka's Queen & Country comics, stars in her second novel (after A Gentleman's Game). The special ops officer in Her Majesty's secret service is back in England, recovering from a mission in which her lover, spy Tom Wallace, was killed. When Tara learns she's pregnant, she quits the service and has a baby girl, Tamsin. After a year changing nappies and mourning Tom, she's offered a mission in diplomatically crucial Uzbekistan. President Malikov is ailing, and a succession fight between his son, Ruslam, and evil daughter, Sevara, has begun. Tara is asked to perform a dangerous, solo, unsanctioned lift, spiriting Ruslam and his son out of the country; of course she can't resist. After setting up child care for Tamsin, she flies to Tashkent and the op is under way. Things quickly go to hell—novels like this wouldn't be any fun if they didn't—and Tara finds herself in mortal danger at the hands of Uzbekistan's most loathsome torturer. Tara is often likened to a female James Bond (she can drink, sleep around and kill just like a man), but she's really more interesting than the comparison would suggest. These are well-researched, intriguingly complicated, exciting spy novels in the tradition of Adam Hall and his great series hero, Quiller. (Oct. 25)
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From Booklist

Here is the sequel to A Gentleman's Game (2004), the spy thriller that was based on the author's comic book (Queen & Country) that was in turn based on a late-1970s British television series (The Sandbaggers). Tara Chase, the ambitious and hotheaded Special Operations Officer for the British Secret Intelligence Service, returns from a difficult and wholly unsanctioned operation in which her colleague and lover died. To her surprise, she is not removed from active duty. To her greater surprise, she discovers she is pregnant. Denied a leave of absence, Tara quits the SIS, only to realize that life can be deadly for a spy who tries to quit the game. Rucka injects the novel with a hard contemporary edge and a heavy dose of sensuality that may prompt comparisons to the television series Alias--also featuring a young, sexy spy--but whereas Alias is slick fantasy, the Tara Chase novels are rough-and-tumble adventures that feel very real. Expect this series to stick around for quite a while. David Pitt
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 432 pages
• Publisher: Bantam; First Printing edition (October 25, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0553802771
• ISBN-13: 978-0553802771
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.3 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,009,942 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Rucka at the top of his game, November 2, 2005

By	Bookreporter.com (New York, New York) - See all my reviews

Authors laboring in the thriller genre have produced an embarrassment of riches lately, with worthwhile books being published on what seems to be a daily basis. PRIVATE WARS by Greg Rucka is this week's entry. Rucka has established his considerable bona fides in a number of media recently, primarily in the comic or sequential art fields. He currently is authoring acclaimed story arcs in WONDER WOMAN and THE ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN, as well as a limited series entitled THE OMAC PROJECT. Rucka also has his own ongoing graphic novel series QUEEN AND COUNTRY, where the characters in PRIVATE WARS and 2004's A GENTLEMAN'S GAME come from. While QUEEN AND COUNTRY is a favorite around Casa de Hartlaub, it is in the thrillers where Rucka's talent truly shines.

PRIVATE WARS picks up almost immediately where A GENTLEMAN'S GAME left off. Tara Chace, Minder One of Her Majesty's Secret Intelligence Service, is still reeling from the events that took place at the close of A GENTLEMAN'S GAME. Chace abruptly quits the Service after being denied a leave of absence from her post, an occurrence that almost immediately leaves her agency in the lurch when a power struggle in Uzbekistan results in a strategic crisis involving Britain and the United States. Chace is persuaded to return to service in order to extricate the pro-Western heir to power before he is assassinated.

As anyone familiar with A GENTLEMAN'S GAME might expect, there are any number of red herrings, wild cards and duplicitous settings where friend and foe change sides and identities --- if they can be identified at all. Chace has more than her own self-preservation guiding her motives, and to complicate matters her mission constantly...changes. Rucka's ability to keep things racing along while explaining and exploring the subtleties of this complex plot is almost unbelievable. Additionally, about midway through the novel, there is an occurrence that is as suspenseful and exciting as anything I have read or watched this year. Seriously. I can't give any work a higher recommendation than that.

Rucka is at the top of his game, and PRIVATE WARS is the pinnacle of his work to date. This is a thriller not to be missed.

--- Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub

12 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "Espionage was ultimately a game of sacrifice.", December 17, 2005

By	E. Bukowsky "booklover10" (NY United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

Greg Rucka's "Private Wars" is a no-holds barred spy novel in which political considerations take precedence over saving lives and protecting human rights. Tara Chace is a courageous, resourceful, and daring British agent whose lover dies, leaving her pregnant with his child. She quits her job, but misses the excitement and quickly becomes restless. When her former boss, Paul Crocker, asks her to conduct a difficult and dangerous mission, she reluctantly agrees.

The job will take place in Uzbekistan, a crucial ally with strategic importance to the West. The head of Uzbekistan is dying and his daughter, Sevara, is in line to take his place. She has already had her sister-in-law tortured and murdered, and may have her sights on her brother, Ruslan, and his two-year-old son, Stepan, as her next victims. Tara's assignment is to spirit Ruslan and Stepan out of the country. What follows is an exciting roller-coaster ride filled with intrigue, betrayal, adrenaline-fueled chase scenes, bloody firefights, and more than a few unpredictable twists and turns. Tara's antagonist is Ahtam Zahldov, Sevara's lover and a sadistic, ambitious, and unprincipled brute who enjoys inflicting pain on his enemies. If she falls into his hands, she faces a slow and agonizing death.

"Private Wars" is a complex and challenging book that requires a great deal of the reader. It is also a clear indictment of the many lying and unprincipled individuals who run intelligence agencies for personal gain and power rather than to foster peace and spread democratic ideals.

Rucka explores the steep price that being a spy extracts from people like Tara. She suffers from nightmares and post-traumatic stress disorder, and she often must depart at a moment's notice, leaving her small child with a caregiver. Every time she begins an operation, she knows that she may never see her daughter again. Sadly, Tara has learned never to trust anyone. As Rucka points out, espionage consists of "truths revealed to protect lies, relationships twisted to steal secrets, lives surrendered in exchange for [small] gains." People die, careers are ruined, governments are destabilized, and to what end?

"Private Wars" gets more exciting as the story progresses, and the conclusion is an absolute stunner. This is a thinking person's novel, along the lines of Stella Rimington's "At Risk," which I also recommend highly.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Nicely Researched Story - Plot Full of Holes, October 16, 2008

By	pjm "pjm" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Private Wars (Queen and Country) (Mass Market Paperback)

I read Private Wars after Tara Chace was referenced in an article about smart, human spies. I give the book 2 stars for being a fast read and hard to put down, it could be adapted for a spy movie. Unfortunately Rucka's research detailing the story in Central Asia was wasted with holes in the plot or implausible occurrences. This disappointment keeps it from getting more stars. Rucka's editor should have challenged him instead of letting him get away with such sloppines. Perhaps the graphics make the comic version better.

Tara acted smartly and humanly, though we learn somewhat crazy; everyone else in the story was incredibly stupid or failed tests of realism. Afghan warloard General Kostum lets BBC reporters into visit him for an interview after the Taliban assassinated a fellow warlord under similar pretenses before 9/11? The head of the secret police does not have a guard detail, even after the first attack on him? Ruslan lives in a dictatorship oblivious to people being killed around him and naively not taking steps to protect himself. I could list more, but don't want to spoil the story.

The plot had huge gaps in credibility when Tara was simply released after capture and later when the main villain was simply found and killed. I was unsatisfied with major events happening without reason; especially after investing so much time in a detailed plot. Once again I could list more, but don't want to spoil the story.