All Fall Down by James Brabazon

First published in the UK in 2020; published by Berkley on February 2, 2021

It is the nature of espionage that things are not always as they appear. That is also the basis for many espionage novels, including All Fall Down.

Frank Knight gives Max McLean what seems to be an easy assignment. Travel to a cottage in “the wild country of Donegal” and kill “an Old IRA man” named Chappie Connor. After two days of surveillance, Max enters the cottage and pulls the trigger, only to make three discoveries: first, his victim is already dead; second, the dead man is holding a hundred-dollar bill bearing the word Archangel written in Cyrillic; and third, whoever killed Connor is now trying to kill Max. One shootout and explosion later, Max is swimming for his life.

Max doesn’t know what’s up, but he pretends to have lost the C-note while swimming. That swim and the preceding shootout is the first of many action scenes in All Fall Down. I often think that action scenes work better in movies than novels, but James Brabazon writes them with such cinematic detail that the shootouts, explosions, and chases — culminating with a shootout during a chase while riding a racehorse in the midst of explosions — are just as exciting as they would be on a big screen.

Max decides to check in with his oldest friend, Doc Levy. What he finds haunts him for the rest of the novel. When Knight calls Max in Levy’s house and tells him to run, Max barely has time to wonder how Knight knew his whereabouts before he’s engaged in the novel’s second high-action scene.

Max quickly determines that the British, the Russians, the Americans, and the Israelis all want to get their hands on the hundred-dollar bill. They’re willing to shoot up a bar and kill everyone in it (and each other) to get a chance to go through Max’s pockets.

There’s nothing for it but to investigate the provenance of the bill and the Russian word Archangel. That investigation brings him to a forger, to an information broker, and to a young math genius named Bhavneet (“Baaz”) Singh. Max has a momentary moral dilemma after he saves Baaz from the novel’s fourth or fifth shootout (this one in the Catacombs beneath Paris), only to come close to killing him before deciding that Baaz’s math skills might be useful.

Max isn’t necessarily a deep thinker, but he at least reflects (when time permits) before he kills, which elevates him above the average thriller protagonist. He spends most of the novel wondering why so many people are trying to kill him over a hundred-dollar bill, only to learn that some of the players are not who he believed them to be. In the meantime, he learns something about quantum computers and algorithms and a lot of jargon that sounded good to me, as someone who vaguely grasps the concept of anything that begins with the word “quantum” but soon gets lost in the details.

If you can believe that Max can survive an endless series of shootouts and explosions — and you need to believe that to enjoy most action novels — then All Fall Down tells a reasonably credible story. The plot twists are surprising, as befits a spy novel. The world hopping (Ireland, Paris, Israel, Russia) is interesting and the characters are developed with all the personality they need. As spy novels of the action variety go, All Fall Down offers more thrills than most.

RECOMMENDED

The Break Line by James Brabazon

Published by Berkley on January 29, 2019

Max McLean has the usual tough guy credentials — he’s seen “Syrian torture chambers” and “Columbian cartels’ killing rooms.” He’s killed a lot of people. McLean was identified in the military as a legally sane psychopath, someone who would follow orders to kill without questioning them, regardless of the circumstances. A couple of decades later, McLean has developed an ethic, if not a conscience. His failure to follow an order stirs up a commotion, but he is given a chance to redeem himself with a new assignment.

McLean is an off-the-books asset of the British government, a civilian assassin who, as part of “the Unknown,” does not officially exist. His new assignment, opposed by the more sensible heads on the team of decisionmakers, is to terminate the command and control of a group of rebels in Sierra Leone who are considered an imminent threat to the British government’s interests. The rebel force is believed to be ruthless and Russian-backed. The last guy the Brits sent on that mission returned without his sanity, although he might not have had much sanity to lose.

McLean’s first inkling of the trouble he’ll face comes when he encounters victims of gruesome killings who, in addition to being beheaded and disemboweled, seem to have been chewed upon by human teeth. The descriptions are quite graphic, although I imagine that sensitive readers who might be particularly disturbed by them do not read tough guy novels. Still, take this as a warning.

The underlying story — the mystery McLean uncovers in Sierra Leone — is not particularly original. That doesn’t make it a bad story (most thrillers aren’t particularly original) but don’t expect to encounter a “wow” factor.

The plot does offer one big surprise that plays into the developing characterization of McLean prior to the big reveal. The surprise might be a bit contrived but contrived surprises are common in modern thrillers, and this one is no more contrived than most. It also adds an interesting wrinkle to the story, which makes it forgivable.

McLean spends too much time telling us that he feels empty inside. Emptiness is standard characterization for a tough guy protagonist who has seen the horrors of war, but when it comes across as whining, readers lose empathy for the character. McLean’s abandonment issues are too heavy-handed to generate empathy, but at least they integrate well with the plot. And given that most action heroes are self-righteous nitwits, it is always a relief to find one who doesn’t consider himself the savior of the limited population groups he deems worthy of salvation.

Some of the story borders on the ridiculous. James Brabazon crosses the border by the novel’s end when the terrible evil is unleashed. The Break Line features some strong action scenes, although when one guy with a handgun took out six guys with assault rifles, I had to take a brief break from reading to roll my eyes. McLean dodges mortar rounds and RPGs and machine guns and takes on fighters who have the equivalent of superpowers. The story becomes more outlandish and less believable as it moves forward, but it is exciting in the way that video games can be fun without being plausible. And the ending, which reverts in some ways to a traditional spy thriller, is quite good.

RECOMMENDED