Die Twice

Die Twice
by Andrew Grant
Recommended Ages: 14+

Fresh off his self-therapeutic break (following the events of Even) to avenge the death of a colleague for whom he had unprofessional feelings, British Navy intelligence agent David Trevellyan is reassigned to help the Chicago consulate catch the rogue operative who recently traded bullets with Trevellyan's new handler. Tony McIntyre has gotten mixed up with black market arms deals, and now he has brought a canister of something hideous to the Windy City, with the apparent intention of selling it to at least one side in a small African nation's next civil war. Every time Trevellyan thinks he has McIntyre where he wants them, however, somebody either hits him over the head, or blows something up nearby, or crashes a car into his handler's vehicle, etc.

My father and I both enjoyed reading early chapters of this book together, aloud, during a short road trip. By the end of that excerpt, however, I was already starting to detect something fishy. I didn't know if it was a flaw in Andrew Grant's pacing as a writer of dialogue, or whether I should be suspicious that Trevellyan was being had. I am happy to report that those suspicions were on target, and that it led (if possible) to an even tougher, tighter, brusquely violent conclusion than the previous book. In the middle, there were loads of gripping action, suitably complex spy-vs.-spy intrigue, some sky-scraping suspense and, of course, opportunities to appreciate the special skills of a guy whose entire upbringing (as he feels free to tell us, little by little, throughout the book) make him really well suited to this kind of work.

Trevellyan is pretty much Jack Reacher with a British accent, albeit a little chattier and more given to making witty quips. He isn't a big fan of traitors to the service, either. No surprise, then, that Lee Child of Jack Reacher fame is Andrew Grant's older brother, as I may have mentioned once before. What I might not have noted is that Grant's wife is also an author – Tasha Alexander, whose "Lady Emily" mysteries run to 16 books. Hmm. I may never get out of this "reading books by authors who are related to other authors" business. Anyway, for more about Trevellyan, you'll have to settle for the third and (since 2012) latest book, More Harm Than Good. But Grant is also the author of at least six other novels, including two other series and the standalone thriller Run.