The Prisoner by Alex Berenson

Published by G.P. Putnam's Sons on January 31, 2017

I read the first couple of books in this series when they came out and wasn’t impressed. The Prisoner makes me think I should go back and read the ones I missed. Compared to the early novels, Alex Berenson has sharpened his prose, honed his storytelling ability, and strengthened his characters.

John Wells is no longer running around the mountains of Afghanistan. Now he’s wandering around the woods in Montana, at least until he learns he has a baby. That motivates him to wander around the woods in New Hampshire. Wells’ former boss, a power-mad CIA director, has just won the presidency by declaring war on the press. Wells plans to ignore it all and stay retired until he gets a phone call from Bulgaria. Then he’s back in the game.

In the grand tradition of spy novels, Wells is told that a mole is leaking information to Islamic State. The evidence is convincing but the president doesn’t want to believe it could be one of his top guys. The intel comes from overheard comments made by a terrorist in a Bulgarian prison that the US uses to hold high-value prisoners. To root out the mole, Wells decides to infiltrate the prison, posing as a captured terrorist trying to get the source to give up the mole’s name. Nobody expects that to happen, but the hope is that the mole will expose himself while trying to shut down Wells.

The novel has three plot threads. The first focuses on Wells, as he infiltrates the Bulgarian prison. The second follows a terrorist who is producing sarin gas for the Islamic State. The third is the mole, whose identity the reader learns long before the good guys discover it. The three threads come together as terrorists prepare to release the sarin gas at a location that will serve the Islamic State’s goal of spreading terror that is both real and symbolic.

I admire the vivid and painful truths that Alex Berenson illustrates about recent history, primarily through a character who misuses those truths to justify his betrayal. I appreciate the fact that Wells, unlike too many thriller heroes, has a conscience and doesn’t shrug off killing bad guys with “he had it coming” and innocents with “collateral damage.”

At the same time, quite a bit of the traitor’s character development comes in a lengthy expository narrative that slows the novel’s pace. Most of the novel, however, particularly when it focuses on Wells and in scenes that follow the terrorists, moves briskly. This is an action novel rather than a novel of intrigue, but the action is credible. Wells solves most problems with his brain, not with the superhuman fighting ability that most thriller heroes seem to possess. The “race against the clock to thwart a terrorist attack” plot nevertheless generates a fair amount of action, and Wells is certainly capable of defending himself. All of that makes The Prisoner an engaging thriller.

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