Book Review: Spy for Hire
Spy for Hire
by Dan Mayland
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Reviewed as part of my Amazon Vine gig
Dan Mayland’s latest installment in his Mark Sava series, “Spy for Hire”, is spectacular. It moves the main character–Sava–comfortably out of the CIA into his own spy-for-hire company and establishes several others as players in the storyline, namely his live-in girlfriend and one of the guys who works for him. In this book, Sava tracks a kidnapped child who is at the middle of a political and emotional firestorm. As he attempts to find and rescue the 4-year old, he must figure out if his family actually cares for his welfare or just want to use him–and is that any of Sava’s business? The subplots are just as intriguing: Sava’s CIA ties, Decker’s effort to get back to America to see his dying father (Decker is a recurring character who works in Sava’s spy business).
The characters are well-developed and appealing, the plot is clever and demanding, and the pace is unrelenting. For anyone not familiar with the character, Mayland does a great job establishing Sava’s bona fides early in the story:
“Mark took a moment, as he always did upon entering a room., to analyze the situation. Daria was wearing an apron over a nice black skirt and a green blouse, which told him she’d come from a meeting, probably in Bishkek, and that she had more meetings planned for later in the day; her phone was on the counter, and turned on, so she’d likely been trying to conduct business while she cooked; onion skins were scattered all over the countertop cutting board, which suggested she was rushed because she typically cleaned as she cooked; and her brown eyes looked happy but tired.”
One paragraph and we’ve learned volumes about the main character.
I don’t have as much to say bout this book–for all the right reasons. Usually, I jot down my thoughts as I’m reading. This time, I’d be through a hundred pages before I realized I hadn’t written a thing. I guess that tells you a lot, too.
Highly recommended–the best in the series (see my review of Mayland’s 2nd in the Sava series, The Leveling).
More book reviews about spies:
Spycraft–Secret History of the CIA’s Spytechs
Jacqui Murray is the author of the popular Building a Midshipman , the story of her daughter’s journey from high school to United States Naval Academy. She is webmaster for six blogs, an Amazon Vine Voice book reviewer, a columnist for Examiner.com and TeachHUB, Editorial Review Board member for Journal for Computing Teachers, monthly contributor to Today’s Author and a freelance journalist on tech ed topics. In her free time, she is editor of technology training books for how to integrate technology in education. Currently, she’s editing a techno-thriller that should be out to publishers next summer.
Filed under: Amazon, book reviews Tagged: spy, thriller
