Engrossing Espionage Novel
Have you ever been to
Lagos, Nigeria? No? Neither had I, until I read this engaging novel by
world-traveler Francesca Salerno. Her depiction of Lagos and of the now-capital
of Nigeria, Abuja, made me feel I had landed in the west coast of Africa, along
with her heroes, CIA counter-terrorism officer Kate Langley and former
Pakistani spy chief Mahmood Mahmood, sometime allies, longtime friends,
embroiled in trying to keep nuclear warheads from the terrorist Boka Haram al
Qaeda fanatics and prevent a jihadi from detonating conventional explosives
embedded in tons of toxic chemicals downtown.
The novel moves rapidly, with Kate Langley and
other Westerners trying to find the causes for and prevent further consequences
of the explosive sinking of a Russian nuclear submarine off the coast of
Nigeria. They are aided by such admirable Nigerians as Goodfellow Obadu and his
beautiful and bright wife, Kema, a couple determined to do what is right. They
are opposed by an evil former schoolmate of Obadu: a fanatic Moslem man intent
on bringing terror to Lagos. Many interesting characters populate this story,
and most of them are more-or-less admirable, and several sub-plots add spice.
Although this is the second of Salerno’s novels
about the Langley-Mahmood pair, it can be read without having read the first, The Pakistan Conspiracy, which I have
just downloaded to read soon. It wouldn’t surprise me if a third in the series
is in gestation.
Here's the amazon.com link:
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