The middleman / Olen Steinhauer.
Record details
- ISBN: 9781250036179
- Physical Description: 360 pages ; 25 cm
- Edition: First edition.
- Publisher: New York : Minotaur Books, 2018.
- Copyright: ©2018.
Search for related items by subject
Subject: | Undercover operations > Fiction. Terrorists > Fiction. |
Genre: | Suspense fiction. |
Available copies
- 12 of 12 copies available at BC Interlibrary Connect. (Show)
- 1 of 1 copy available at Smithers Public Library.
Holds
- 0 current holds with 12 total copies.
Other Formats and Editions
Location | Call Number / Copy Notes | Barcode | Shelving Location | Holdable? | Status | Due Date |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Smithers Public Library | F STE (Text) | 35101011021107 | Adult Fiction | Volume hold | Available | - |
- Booklist Reviews : Booklist Reviews 2018 May #1
*Starred Review* Cold War spy fiction had one big advantage: The pace of change was relatively slow. How can a writer keep up in today's turbulent world? Steinhauer (All the Old Knives, 2015) doesn't chase current events but still somehow captures the zeitgeist. In The Middleman, the mostly young followers of a movement known as the Massive Brigade suddenly begin disappearingâbut where have they gone and what are they planning? With their absence itself seeming like a threat, FBI Special Agent Rachel Proulx leads an investigation fraught with unknowns. The two putative leaders of the decentralized movement are enigmas, their intentions hard to decipher, and when the first shots are fired, they lead not to catharsis but more puzzlement. Steinhauer is a master at layering gray upon gray, motive upon motive, and, as the months sweep past and the country is swept by a wave of massive protests, the question becomes whether the real war is on the streets or in the institutions policing them. Yes, this features the trappings of a thrillerâshoot-outs, international locales, a looming sense of threat, sudden reversalsâbut the biggest thrills are the subtlest ones. (Watch for the surprising way Steinhauer connects The Middleman to his Tourism novels featuring Milo Weaver.) Though his earliest fictions were set behind the Iron Curtain, Steinhauer proves himself an equally adept chronicler of a world in which walls have come down and the most potent powers aren't necessarily political. Another must-read from a modern master.HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: With an announced 150,000-copy run and a major promotional campaign, the publisher will ensure nobody misses Steinhauer's first book in three years. Copyright 2018 Booklist Reviews. - BookPage Reviews : BookPage Reviews 2018 August
Whodunit: Can you tell who the good guys are?Picture a counterculture movement that neatly splits the ideological difference between Occupy and Aum Shinrikyo, the Japanese cult responsible for the 1995 sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway system, and you'll have a good idea of the Massive Brigade, which plays a central role in Olen Steinhauer's latest thriller, The Middleman. The organization started out as a nonviolent yet combative group against social injustice, but now they have become weaponized and are targeted by the FBI. But before the FBI can step in, leader Martin Bishop vanishes, taking with him 400-odd followers. Things escalate to a shootoutâa bloodbath, actuallyâwith the apparent "good guys" seizing the day. But the story is a long way from over, and it proceeds at a more frenetic pace than spy stories of old, largely because of the strange times we find ourselves in now, when right is wrong and lies are truth. Steinhauer masterfully taps into that vein of uncertainty and disaffectedness.
STRIP DOWN TO THE TRUTH
If you like a liberal dose of humor in your suspense fiction, then look no further than David Gordon's clever new caper, The Bouncer. The protagonist, Joe Brody, is a bouncer at a gentleman's club owned by Gio Caprisi, whom Joe has known since his Catholic school days and who is deeply connected with the Mafia. Joe has been at the other end of a bouncer's baton himself, having been kicked out of Harvard some years back, and he is always up for a bit of petty (or grand) larceny, should the right opportunity present itself. Meanwhile, FBI agent Donna Zamora mans the terrorist phone-tip line at bureau headquarters, though she would strongly prefer to be out in the field. Are she and Joe going to meet? Oh, yes. And will the sparks fly? Yes again. Initially, there is not a lot of trust between the pair, as Zamora arrests Joe as part of a citywide terrorism sweep. Joe's time in the holding cell affords him a golden opportunity for a bit of larceny, so the possibility of a big score could outweigh the need to save the country from terrorism. The Bouncer has "film adaptation" written all over it.IF MEMORY SERVES ME
Caz Frear's Sweet Little Lies has been generating a lot of buzz (it's even been optioned for TV by Carnival Films, the producer of "Downton Abbey"), and with good reason: It is one of the best debuts I've read in some time. The story starts with a flashback to 1998, when young Cat Kinsella is on holiday with her family in Ireland. A glamorous young woman, Maryanne Doyle, goes missing under mysterious circumstances, and Cat cannot shake a nagging suspicion about her father's hand in the disappearance. Fast forward 20-odd years, and Cat is now a detective constable with the London police. While investigating a murder, Cat receives a strange phone call that suggests a link between the present-day homicide and the disappearance of Maryanne. Is it a coincidence that Cat's father still runs a pub not far from the site of the murder? Or is Cat conflating memories of her childhood with the too-easy coincidence of her estranged father's proximity to this latest case? Cat is a bit of a troubled soul, which may call her judgment into question. That said, she is an engaging character who is worthy of her central place in this fine new series.TOP PICK IN MYSTERY
Dr. Siri Paiboun, everyone's favorite spirit-channeling, semiretired Laotian coroner and sleuth, returns for the 13th book of Colin Cotterill's critically acclaimed series, Don't Eat Me. Grisly and hilarious in equal measure, not unlike the 1980s Vientiane milieu in which it is set, the narrative alternates between two parallel storylines. Under cover of darkness, Dr. Siri smuggles an expensive and rather huge movie camera across the Mekong River from Thailand. His ambitious plan is to create an epic Laotian film version of Tolstoy's War and Peaceânever mind that he has never written a screenplay, never operated a movie camera, has no access to professional actors and must secure permission from the notoriously repressive government. Meanwhile, a skeleton turns up at the base of the Victory Arch, a monument to those who died in the struggle for Laos' independence from France. This skeleton, that of a young woman, appears to have been munched upon by animals, possibly while its owner was still alive. All the usual supporting characters are present and accounted for, including Dr. Siri's wife, Madame Daeng, who takes no guff from anyone, particularly Dr. Siri. It is helpful but not entirely necessary to read the series in order; by the time you have accomplished that, hopefully installment number 14 will have hit bookshelves.Â
This article was originally published in the August 2018 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.
Copyright 2018 BookPage Reviews. - Kirkus Reviews : Kirkus Reviews 2018 June #2
A thoroughly modern thriller, as real as the news. "The Massive Brigade," an organization similar to the Occupy movement, has captured the attention of the media and the people. Rolling Stone runs a profile, and the FBI takes notice. When a phone tip reveals the Brigade has cached a Stinger missile, it crosses the line from protest movement to terrorist threat. The FBI, in the person of Special Agent Rachel Proulx, arrives at a party too late to arrest the Brigade's leaders, Martin Bishop and Ben Mittag, and they disappear into the American landscape, along with about 400 of their followers, who similarly vanish. The FBI has an undercover agent, Kevin Moore, among the vanished, permitting the plot to follow the dual tracks of the FBI's efforts to find the Brigade and the Brigade's internal turmoil, which meet in a shootout. The media declares victory for the FBI, careers are advanced, and the movement seems dismantled. But the FBI's subsequent account of the bloodbath, at fir st kept secret and then released only because of public pressure, differs from the experiences of Proulx and Moore. The two unite in hopes of uncovering who is being protected and why, and the Massive Brigade survives, in some form, to play a role in the denouement. Steinhauer (All the Old Knives, 2015, etc.) is a veteran, a real pro; the issues raised in this well-paced thriller are serious and timely, and the characters are believable and likable. But the targets of the Brigade, corporate conspiracy and the protection of the rich from public scrutiny, never quite reach a viscerally threatening level, and the individuals who conspire to preserve the status quo seem merely bureaucratically venal. A professional and entertaining thriller a little short on menace. Copyright Kirkus 2018 Kirkus/BPI Communications. All rights reserved. - Library Journal Reviews : LJ Reviews 2015 October #1
Known for his Milo Weaver thrillers, Steinhauer is a Dashiell Hammett Award winner with New York Times best-selling status. He's been short-listed for the Anthony, Macavity, and Barry awards and for Ellis Peters Historical and Ian Fleming Steel daggers and has twice been an Edgar finalist. His new work features an FBI agent wrestling with domestic left-wing terrorists.
[Page 54]. (c) Copyright 2015 Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. - Library Journal Reviews : LJ Reviews 2018 March #2
Two-time Edgar Award finalist Steinhauer offers a stand-alone about a domestic left-wing terrorist group. The story unfolds from the perspectivesof an undercover FBI agent and a writer on the periphery of the group.
Copyright 2018 Library Journal. - Library Journal Reviews : LJ Reviews 2018 April #1
Steinhauer (
Copyright 2018 Library Journal.The Tourist ) opens his new stand-alone with disappearances. Kevin Moore walks away from his life in what resembles a call to domestic terrorism. A man picks him up and proceeds to another scheduled pickup, making it clear that the call is coordinated, and the disappearance is collective. A heated political argument at a party escalates into a physical altercation; a marriage begins to crumble, and days later, the wife has become one of the hundreds of vanished. At the root of these disparate events is Martin Bishopârumored to lead a leftist revolution dubbed Massive Brigade against America's ruling elite. Special Agent Rachel Proulx, once tasked with keeping tabs on fringe groups, leads an investigation into Martin's group. Rachel's task force has meager resources until an astounding event on July 4 sends the FBI and the country spinning into another gear.VERDICT Steinhauer has written an unnerving and timely thriller with incredible pivots. From a perspective on activist/terrorist civilian organizations to an examination of Big Brother conspiracy plots, there's something here for everyone to gripâwith white knuckles. [See Prepub Alert, 2/1/18.]âJulie Kane, Washington & Lee Lib., Lexington, VA - Publishers Weekly Reviews : PW Reviews 2018 June #1
This smart polemical thriller from bestseller Steinhauer (
Copyright 2018 Publishers Weekly.All the Old Knives ) starts off strong, but loses its way. On June 18, 2017, hundreds of people around the U.S. get a call, then discard their phones, credit cards, IDsâand disappear. They are members of the Massive Brigade, a cult organized by social justice revolutionary Martin Bishop. He believes American politics has failed, and repairing it requires radical change, which appears to come about when simultaneous political assassinations are carried out at July 4 celebrations around the country. Steinhauer has captured a very contemporary, very American angstâ"people are going to have to pull a trigger, just to be heard"âbut the book's muddled second half will leave many readers frustrated because the polarities aren't that clear. Rachel Proulx, an earnest FBI agent, is obviously one of the good guys, but the ostensible bad guys are less well-delineatedâand the denouement is unsatisfying. Steinhauer fans will hope for a return to form next time.150,000-copy first printing. Agent: Stephanie Cabot, Gernert Co. (Aug.)