Liars & Thieves

Rating:
Summary: action-packed conspiracy thriller
Review: Former burglar Tommy Carmellini now works for the CIA. His current assignment is to inspect security at the Greenbriar River Facility, a CIA safe house in the Alleghany Mountains in Virginia. When he reaches his destination, Tommy finds the complex under attack. He manages to kill a goon, rescuing translator Kelly Erlanger and a suitcase of KGB files.

Kelly informs Tommy that the resident of the safe house, former KGB archivist Mikhail Goncharov obviously had information that someone wants kept buried. Now someone wants Tommy and Kelly dead and willing to murder anyone associated with the operative including his partner Willie the Wire and his former lover Dorsey O'Shea, who just asked him to steal some porno tapes starring her. With the assailants in pursuit, Tommy, Kelly, and now Dorsey flee to Rehoboth Beach where retired Rear Admiral Jake Grafton offers temporary sanctuary while the team tries to sort out why someone wants them dead.

Carmellini in his first major appearance (bit player in CUBA) is an intriguing protagonist who provides an intriguing counterpoint to Stephen Coonts' prime superstar, Grafton. The story line is action-packed, but the conspiracy has been often told so it somewhat lacks freshness even with several interesting twists and a fine cast. LIARS AND THIEVES will entertain newcomers and the author's fan base will enjoy, but not at the quality of a Grafton led thriller.

Harriet Klausner

Rating:
Summary: Bad Carmellini
Review: Have been a fan of Steve Coonts, a former shipmate, for a long time, since "Flight of the Intruder" and all the rest. Hate to see Jake Grafton "retired" but that's more on me than on Jake, as I'm retired now, too. Won't bother with synopsizing the plot, which is no wilder than many of this genre, but the body count is VERY high, and as one other reviewer pointed out, there are many editing oversights. Carmellini is a Spillane-esque character: kills people without a glance, sleeps around with no apparent regard for the medical risks, maintains a rugged physique with no more exercise than an occasional run, survives everything shot, thrown or exploded at/under him, and also does throwaway gag lines. I didn't find him all that appealing, just as I don't care for Dirk Pitt, Clive Cussler's supermensch. There is also some mystery about Jake being a "consultant" who is still able to make a phone call and get a Delta Force team on site, no questions asked. Fortunately, the story moves along at such a high velocity that these are nit-picky details that only emerge after you've turned a page and then suddenly wonder "hey, how did THAT happen?" If you don't expect anything profound, it's a decent beach read.

Rating:
Summary: Not satisfying
Review: I'm a Stephen Coonts fan. While his novels have varied in quality from time to time, he's always been a satisfying read - until "Liars & Thieves." I don't know what the problem is. Were creditors beating on Coonts' door and he had to rush something out? Does he have a contract with a publisher he doesnt like and thought a turkey might get him out of it? Did he simply have a bad couple of days?

The plot and characters have been reviewed here so I won't repeat what others have already said. My criticism is that the Tommy Carmellini character is tissue thin. All the other characters, including the redoubtable Jake Grafton, are transparent, contrived and entirely unbelievable.

You can see where Coonts get his bad guys in this one: parts of Bill and Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, Bruce Lindsey and the late Vince Foster, familiar to any news junkie, are all there. This wouldn't be bad if there was some suspense involved - but there isn't.

Finally the editing and proofreading in this book are abominable.

Despite the unbelievable plot and characters, Coonts' style is intact and this is a quick read. It just isn't a satisfying read. I do hope that this is the exception and not a precursor of things to come. In any event, when the next Coonts novel appears, I will snap it up. I just hope it won't be as disappointing as "Liars & Thieves."

Jerry

Rating:
Summary: Not satisfying
Review: I'm a Stephen Coonts fan. While his novels have varied in quality from time to time, he's always been a satisfying read - until "Liars & Thieves." I don't know what the problem is. Were creditors beating on Coonts' door and he had to rush something out? Does he have a contract with a publisher he doesnt like and thought a turkey might get him out of it? Did he simply have a bad couple of days?

The plot and characters have been reviewed here so I won't repeat what others have already said. My criticism is that the Tommy Carmellini character is tissue thin. All the other characters, including the redoubtable Jake Grafton, are transparent, contrived and entirely unbelievable.

You can see where Coonts get his bad guys in this one: parts of Bill and Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, Bruce Lindsey and the late Vince Foster, familiar to any news junkie, are all there. This wouldn't be bad if there was some suspense involved - but there isn't.

Finally the editing and proofreading in this book are abominable.

Despite the unbelievable plot and characters, Coonts' style is intact and this is a quick read. It just isn't a satisfying read. I do hope that this is the exception and not a precursor of things to come. In any event, when the next Coonts novel appears, I will snap it up. I just hope it won't be as disappointing as "Liars & Thieves."

Jerry

Rating:
Summary: Jake Grafton . . . as consultant!
Review: It's as interesting as enjoyable when a successful author branches his characters out. Naturally, 'if done well' is the caveat.

Mr. Coonts does an admirable job here making the young, wisecracking Tommy Carmellini the bedrock about which to build "Liars and Thieves." Kind of like an offshoot of successful television series in the '70's, Michael Connelly did this with the Harry Bosch and Terry McCaleb books.

This is a pretty good story reminiscent of a great old movie, "3 Days of the Condor," where a CIA agent returns from buying coffee and donuts for his colleagues in a 'safehouse' (in the Robert Redford role) only to find every one of his colleagues has been murdered in the 15 minutes he was on the 'donut run.'

Here Tommy Carmellini is assigned guard duty at a CIA safe house only to stumble upon the killing of all of the occupants. The story starts off with a bang along with the natural, "why?'

That Mr. Coonts keeps this from us for several hundred pages is a pretty good indication of the level of his skill. As I read along getting into the 300's, I still wasn't certain how he was going to tie it all together. Really, quite an interesting read that is a good mystery/airplane/train/beach/summertime novel.

Detracting from it were little oddities that I found . . .well, odd. It seems believable that the CIA would hire ex-felons to do their undercover/confidential informant work. I have trouble believing they would hire two of them and put them on the weekly payrole in their own offices inside the CIA castle.

Secondly, for a guy who professes love for a former colleague as much as Tommy does, he sure sleeps around a lot. I have no problem with that. It just seems Mr. Coonts is appealing to conflicting sides of individual natures.

The character of Tommy Carmellini is complex and he's a nice adjunct to the "tough as a two dollar steak" loyal Navy Vet, Jake Grafton. But, how can I say this? In "Liars & Thieves," he's on his own. Maybe he should be more focused and less like a fraternity boy. A fraternity boy with an M-5 automatic rifle. 4 Stars. Recommended. Larry Scantlebury

Rating:
Summary: Have No Fear --- Tommy Carmellini is Here!
Review: Stephen Coonts has for several years been busily shouldering his way to the front of the pack of military thriller writers. Seemingly incapable of writing badly, he demonstrates a familiar acquaintance with the geewhiz technological side of the genre while choosing to focus primarily on the personalities between the machinery. Coonts has been most successful with his novels that feature Admiral Jake Grafton. Many of Coonts's longtime readers, however, have clamored for a book featuring Tommy Carmellini, the burglar turned CIA operative who has been one of Coonts's more interesting creations. The readers get their wish --- and then some --- with LIARS & THIEVES.

LIARS & THIEVES is played out against a backdrop that combines the vestiges of the Cold War with a contemporary political convention. Carmellini is assigned to a tour of guard duty at a CIA safe house where U.S. government operatives are debriefing a KGB archivist who has defected to the United States and who has had access to --- and copies of --- records of every intelligence operation that the KGB ever ran. When Carmellini arrives on-site, however, he stumbles into a commando attack --- undertaken by American operatives --- that appears to have left everyone dead, save for an attractive American translator. Carmellini escapes with her, but soon finds that the translator has an agenda all her own.

One other person, however, has also escaped the safe house carnage: it is the archivist, who is suffering from traumatic amnesia. Carmellini suddenly finds himself blamed for the carnage and is potentially in the scope of virtually every law enforcement officer in the country. He must rely on his wits, street smarts and contacts on both sides of the law to determine what was behind the attack on the safe house and to escape intact from the mysterious forces that are pursuing him.

Carmellini turns to his mentor and friend, Jake Grafton, for help. Carmellini and Grafton gradually come to learn that the archivist has information regarding a KGB operation that involved the use of an individual who is now in the highest levels of the United States government, an individual with the power, and the desire, to stop the information of his traitorous activities from ever being revealed. The pursuit of Carmellini and the archivist leads from West Virginia through the mean backstreets of Washington, D.C., all the way to a political convention held in New York City where Carmellini plays a dangerous game that involves discovering the identity of his pursuer while trying desperately to stay alive.

LIARS & THIEVES has little of the military derring-do of Coonts's previous works; readers who have not previously treated themselves to a Coonts thriller should definitely pick up this one, which is closer to James Bond than Jack Ryan in spirit. Coonts continues his practice of using "real world" situations as a basis for his plots, using The Venona Papers and the political aspirations of presidential spouses as plot devices, and it's great fun to figure out who is who in Coonts's fictitious world. If Coonts is intending to pass the torch from Grafton to Carmellini, LIARS & THIEVES bodes extremely well for Coonts's future projects.

--- Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub

Rating:
Summary: Reasonably good techno-espionage thriller
Review: Stephen Coonts' latest novel, Liars & Thieves, is a reasonably good techo-espionage thriller set in the United States. Tommy Carmellini is a CIA agent who happens to stumble upon a CIA safehouse as a massacre is going down. The disturbing part is that the killers are most definitely from the US and look professional (either military or law enforcement). Carmellini is able to rescue one lady who is a Russian interpreter debriefing a Russian defector that was an archivist for the government and copied seven cases of materials over the years. The defector is able to escape on his own, but his age and failing memory leaves him in a state of confusion as to where he is and what's happening. The killers figure out who Carmellini is, and he (and anyone around him) is now a target of someone who appears to be high up in the government, and wants everything related to the defector (including the defector himself) eliminated to protect a secret. Carmellini enlists the help of Jake Grafton (a major character from earlier Coontz novels) to get to the bottom of the mystery and to stay alive.

I'd give this a higher rating if it weren't for a stretch before the final showdown takes place. Through the first half of the book, someone is after Carmellini is being hunted every time he turns around. Once he decides to go to New York to try a last effort to uncover the truth, he ends up being left alone for a number of days while he sets up survellience and listening bugs. Then at the end, he's conveniently a walking target again and nearly gets killed at every turn. The break just didn't seem to fit too well in the story flow. That fact notwithstanding, it's an entertaining read that will entertain you for awhile.

Rating:
Summary: Reasonably good techno-espionage thriller
Review: Stephen Coonts' latest novel, Liars & Thieves, is a reasonably good techo-espionage thriller set in the United States. Tommy Carmellini is a CIA agent who happens to stumble upon a CIA safehouse as a massacre is going down. The disturbing part is that the killers are most definitely from the US and look professional (either military or law enforcement). Carmellini is able to rescue one lady who is a Russian interpreter debriefing a Russian defector that was an archivist for the government and copied seven cases of materials over the years. The defector is able to escape on his own, but his age and failing memory leaves him in a state of confusion as to where he is and what's happening. The killers figure out who Carmellini is, and he (and anyone around him) is now a target of someone who appears to be high up in the government, and wants everything related to the defector (including the defector himself) eliminated to protect a secret. Carmellini enlists the help of Jake Grafton (a major character from earlier Coontz novels) to get to the bottom of the mystery and to stay alive.

I'd give this a higher rating if it weren't for a stretch before the final showdown takes place. Through the first half of the book, someone is after Carmellini is being hunted every time he turns around. Once he decides to go to New York to try a last effort to uncover the truth, he ends up being left alone for a number of days while he sets up survellience and listening bugs. Then at the end, he's conveniently a walking target again and nearly gets killed at every turn. The break just didn't seem to fit too well in the story flow. That fact notwithstanding, it's an entertaining read that will entertain you for awhile.

Rating:
Summary: Tedious and Boring
Review: The author has gone off the rails with this effort. Poorly written and confusingly told, it was a difficult story to get interested in. I have liked many of his past efforts, but this one seems to have been written by another hand. Raising the bit player, Tommy Camaillini to the forefront of the book, doesn't work and when Jake Grafton enters the picture, his role in things is tepid and in the background. I could not have been more disappointed. Save your money.

Rating:
Summary: Fine Coonts thriller featuring Tommy Carmellini !
Review: There just wasn't much left for Jake Grafton to do after his long run as Coonts' famous leading man in the ilk of Clancy's Jack Ryan. So lately, Coonts has trotted out Tommy Carmellini, an ex-CIA agent, to provide the thrills, with a now-retired Jake nearby to "help" with intelligence and a little muscle power during the second half of the book. The plot gets going in a hurry: when Tommy is assigned to help out at a CIA safe house, at which a Russian defector, complete with 7 cases of stolen files, is being debriefed, his introduction to that caper is discovering all the guards murdered and the house under attack. Carmellini saves one woman (an interpreter) but the Russian somehow escapes on his own, using long-honed survival skills to make it through some woods to the safety of an older farm couple who temporarily shelter him while he recovers. From then on this complex story unfolds with great intrigue as Carmellini must discover who he can trust and who he cannot, as it appears Americans are behind the attacks, possibly tracing back to highly placed political figures. A somewhat strange setting, the presidential nomination convention, concludes the story, where to no one's surprise, Carmellini wraps everything up quite nicely with just a little help from his friends.

Coonts always spins a suspenseful yard, and "Liars" is no exception. We're constantly kept guessing about which characters are on which side (good versus bad), and there's action galore as Carmellini fights for his own survival while trying his best to protect his colleagues and clientele. We agree with the several reviewers who found the wrapup a little far-fetched, but we were hooked long before then. We think Coonts' switch to Carmellini from Grafton will please most readers and leave them quite entertained. That's what it's all about!