Scorpion Deception by Andrew Kaplan

Published by Harper on May 28, 2013

Scorpion is an all-too-typical thriller hero. Trained in the Rangers and Delta Force (aren't they all?), an operative with the CIA before resigning (don't they all?), now "a freelance agent known only to certain top echelons within the intelligence community," Scorpion has the ability to fire his weapon unerringly while doing backflips and somersaults. That's almost as impressive as his ability to beat up five armed police officers while wearing handcuffs. Scorpion engages in the detailed and drooling discussions of weaponry and military technology that thriller writers use to establish their credentials. Every thriller with scenes in Africa must include a beautiful and idealistic female physician who beds the hero, and this one is no exception. There is, in fact, very little about this thriller that you haven't read before.

A group of bad guys bust into an American embassy, kill everyone in the building, and steal all the data from the computers. Apparently you can stick flash drives into some desktop computer in Switzerland and get every bit of classified information stored by the CIA, the NSA, and the DOD. Who knew? Scorpion, of course, is the only super-agent capable of finding out who the bad guys are, important information because Congress wants to declare war. I'm not sure it's possible for Congress to declare war on four guys in ski masks, but the CIA hopes to blame it on Iran, providing an excuse to bomb Tehran. The true villain is the Gardener, but who is the Gardener and for whom does he work? The plot -- and the safety of the world -- turns on Scorpion's search for answers to those questions.

Of course, from all the information in the computers, the bad guys immediately glean all there is to know about Scorpion and miraculously show up wherever he happens to be, but somehow they can't manage to kill him. That isn't surprising, but then, nothing about Scorpion Deception is surprising. The terrorists act like standard-issue terrorists. The female physician behaves like the standard brave-but-sexy idealistic doctor. Scorpion has the standard tough-guy-action-hero persona (aggressive, authoritarian, condescending) that, in too many thrillers, substitutes for an actual personality. For someone who attended Harvard and the Sorbonne, Scorpion doesn't seem especially bright. If you're looking for a multi-layered, nuanced protagonist, look elsewhere.

From predictable action scenes to the doctor Scorpion loves but doesn't want to endanger (and so of course he does), too much of Scorpion Deception is formulaic. A book that follows a formula can be good if the formula is good and if it's well executed, but Andrew Kaplan's execution is only so-so. Unbelievable dialog and a tendency toward melodrama make some parts of Scorpion Deception a chore to read, but most of the story is told in straightforward prose. When Kaplan uses common words or phrases in a foreign language, he immediately translates them (even when the meaning is obvious), apparently on the assumption that his readers are too dim to understand them. That gets to be annoying.

On a more positive note, the story that emerges in the novel's second half is moderately entertaining. It's too far over the top to allow full suspension of disbelief, but not outrageously so. The Gardener's identity is reasonably well concealed, lending a bit of mystery to the plot, although readers won't be shocked by the eventual unveiling. Unfortunately, the novel ends with a wildly unrealistic information dump that is intended (but fails) to cast the story in a different light.

Whatever merit the novel might have, there's little to distinguish Scorpion Deception from the blizzard of other action/spy novels that compete for the reader's attention. I wouldn't recommend this one to anyone other than a diehard fan of the series.

NOT RECOMMENDED