The Maze by Nelson DeMille

Published by ‎ Scribner on October 11, 2022

Some John Corey novels are nonstop action. The Maze keeps the reader waiting for action to break out. It inevitably does, albeit in a pronged scene near the novel’s end. During the wait, Corey’s snark becomes the story.

Corey is on a three-quarter disability retirement. He can’t take a law enforcement job without losing his disability — not that he could return to law enforcement without crossing all the bridges that he’s burned. Corey is wasting time at his uncle’s Long Island vacation home, idly wondering whether he should become a mercenary while keeping an eye out for an SVR hit team (or anyone else who might want to kill him). While he waits, he’s offered a job with a couple of former NYPD colleagues in a private investigation firm.

Not so coincidentally, one of Corey’s former lovers, Beth Penrose, comes back into his life and bed. She encourages Corey to take the job. When he discovers that the firm hosts parties, complete with hookers, for local politicians and cops, Corey wonders whether Beth is setting him up as a spy. Without waiting to learn the truth, he decides to go undercover and gather evidence of political and police corruption.

The Maze has a lightweight plot. Since the gunplay comes late in the story, the reader is largely left with Corey’s unspoken thoughts. The thoughts are amusing but not a substantial foundation for a thriller. While the plot eventually makes a connection to the discovery of several dead bodies, the corpses add little but background to the story. The Maze left me with the feeling that Nelson DeMille phoned this one in based on an idea that he sketched out on a napkin. At least he didn’t hand it off to his son, as he did with the previous Corey novel. I'm getting the impression that DeMille, like many successful writers, has decided he can feed thin gruel to his base and they'll lap it up.

I recommend The Maze with reservations to John Corey fans because it’s a John Corey novel. To readers who haven’t followed the series, I suggest starting with earlier, meatier entries and working your way forward. If you don’t get around to this one, the world won’t end.

RECOMMENDED WITH RESERVATIONS

The Deserter by Nelson DeMille and Alex DeMille

Published in the UK in 2019; published by Simon & Schuster on October 22, 2019

I love the John Corey series and I’ve enjoyed most of Nelson DeMille’s other work. I can’t tell how much of The Deserter, co-authored with his son Alex, is Nelson’s and how much is Alex’s. That’s a good thing because the collaboration has not produced an obvious drop-off in quality. On the other hand, the protagonist is sort of a Corey clone and the atmosphere is similar to Nelson’s last novel, The Cuban Affair, complete with relentless bashing of what our president would call a shithole country. At the same time, the novel’s political takes (as expressed by its characters) are a bit less astute than those in The Cuban Affair. Still, I easily ignored the politics and raced through the novel because DeMille & Son know their craft. The story produces thrills and that’s what a successful thriller should do.

Broadly following the premise of Conrad’s Heart of Darkness and its movie counterpart, Apocalypse Now, The Deserter imagines that a Delta Force captain abandoned his command in Afghanistan, was captured by the Taliban, escaped, beheaded his captors, and made his way to Venezuela, where he took command of local mercenaries so he could help them resist America’s undeclared military interests. The captain is more similar to Coppola’s Kurtz than to Conrad’s, in that he has been driven mad not just by the jungle he inhabits but by the military service that shaped his sense of destiny.  

Scott Brodie is a chief warrant officer. He and his partner, Maggie Taylor, have been tasked with finding the Delta Force officer, Kyle Mercer. Someone who knows Mercer spotted him in Venezuela. Brodie’s orders are to bring him back without worrying about legal niceties like extradition. Given that Mercer is formidable, the assignment seems like it might be more than a couple of warrant officers can handle, but Brodie is up for it because, well, this is a thriller.

The Venezuela setting gives the characters a chance to blame Venezuela’s woes on socialism, a simplistic analysis of a complex country that readers with more nuanced views can safely ignore. The atmosphere, both in Caracas and in the jungle, is dangerous. Why Caracas is dangerous is irrelevant to the plot, despite all the pontificating about socialism. Fortunately, the father-and-son writing team eventually stop dwelling on the why and start focusing on the action, which is all that matters in an action-driven thriller. Chases and fights, in a brothel where Mercer was hanging out and in a jungle camp where Mercer is training mercenaries, are credible and exciting.

The plot benefits from a layer of intrigue as Brodie and Taylor struggle to understand why a Delta Force hero would desert his post. The explanation is based on a conspiracy that, given the American government’s conspiratorial history, isn’t hard to swallow.

Brodie is snarky, although he’s Corey-lite when it comes to snark. He isn’t big on planning. He has a tendency to ignore orders and charge ahead to complete the mission as he defines it, a fairly common attribute of military thriller heroes. He’s selectively moralistic (another common feature of military thriller heroes), coming down on Taylor for an arguable betrayal of her position while Brodie deserves to be dishonorably discharged for repeatedly disobeying orders.

Taylor is tough but doesn’t have much personality, beyond playing the humanizing role to which tough women in thrillers are often relegated (they keep the testosterone driven males from killing everyone in sight). The sexual tension between Brodie and Taylor is predictable but it doesn’t interfere with the story. Readers don’t expect deep characterization in a book like this so its absence shouldn’t be disappointing. Instead, readers of The Deserter will get what they are paying for when they buy a thriller. Predictable or not, flawed or not, the thriller delivers its thrills.

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The Cuban Affair by Nelson DeMille

Published by Simon & Schuster on September 19, 2017

Daniel Graham “Mac” MacCormick owns a charter boat in Key West. A fellow named Carlos wants to hire Mac to take him to Cuba for a government-sanctioned fishing tournament. There may be more to it than fishing, and while Mac likes to run a clean operation, the offer of $2 million for ten days’ work gets his attention.

The actual mission involves not fishing, but spiriting some of the past out of Cuba and into the United States. To that end, Mac goes to Cuba, accompanied by the lovely Sara Ortega. Of course, they wind up in bed, not only as part of their cover story, but because they enjoy it. Meanwhile, Mac’s first mate, Vietnam vet Jack Colby, keeps Mac’s fishing boat ready for a quick getaway . . . if Mac and Jack can find a way to get to the boat. I can’t say much else about the plot without spoiling the fun, so I will say only that the story takes some unexpected turns and provides the mix of adventure and suspense that Nelson DeMille consistently delivers.

DeMille’s protagonists always have a wry sense of humor. Mac’s pointed remarks about Cuba’s oppressive government would be funny if they weren’t so accurate. Mac is also a typical DeMille protagonist in that he is tough, capable, decent, unselfish, and skeptical. He isn’t politically correct, but he isn’t an in-your-face jerk about it. I don’t mind fictional characters (or real people, for that matter) having opinions that differ from mine, as long as they aren’t haters or just plain stupid, and Mac’s observations — sharp but never mean — might enhance the novel for readers who share his outlook. In any event, the ending is politically astute, regardless of where the reader falls on the political spectrum.

Mac also suffers from raging hormones. The novel’s love story struck me as unlikely, given the speed with which Mac moved from “I want to get laid” to “I love you,” but high-speed romance is standard in a thriller. The love story adds another complication to Mac’s life, particularly when a competing suitor arrives on the scene. That’s all part of the shifting plot that catches the reader off guard, if not the imperturbable Mac.

Apart from entertaining characters, atmosphere is the key to the novel’s success. This is a Cuba that appears to come from personal experience rather than a travel guide.

Despite the danger the characters face as the story moves along, The Cuban Affair is a little more laid back and a little less gripping than DeMille’s John Corey novels, but those novels set a pretty high standard. The Cuban Affair moves quickly and delivers credible action scenes, particularly when things heat up toward the novel’s end. This isn't DeMille's best work, but it's better than most thriller writers manage.

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Radiant Angel by Nelson DeMille

Published by Grand Central Publishing on May 26, 2015

Colonel Vasily Petrov of the SVR receives a coded message instructing him to carry out his mission. John Corey, now working as a federal contract agent with the Diplomatic Surveillance Group, is assigned to watch Petrov. Corey and the DSG know Petrov is with the SVR but they don't know what nefarious purpose has caused him to masquerade as a diplomat. Corey is conducting surveillance with Tess, who claims to be a trainee with aspirations of joining the FBI. Corey isn't quite certain that her claim is truthful. He also has trust issues concerning his wife, which turns into a minor subplot as the story nears its conclusion.

Corey has an irreverent attitude that makes him a fun character. He holds some grudges against the CIA over a nasty incident in Yemen. He has more than a few grudges against Islamic terrorists but he's convinced that Russia continues to pose a greater security threat (an opinion that doesn't sit well with the State Department, politicians, or most of the intelligence community). Of course, following the universal law of thriller fiction, Corey is right and everyone else is wrong.

The first third of Radiant Angel, setting up the puzzle of what Petrov might be up to, is quite good. The next section, in which the focus shifts to Petrov, some Russian thugs, and a horde of hookers, is standard thriller fare. It moves quickly but the Russians are fairly dull and they're up to the same brand of mischief that has characterized Russian thriller villains for the last half century. The final third brings Corey and Tess back into the picture and the fun resumes.

Nelson DeMille kicked the rust off of a reliable formula and put it back in action, creating an unimaginative story that nevertheless conveys a sense of realism. DeMille has an undeniable gift for generating excitement, but Radiant Angel feels like a story I have read many times before. I give it high marks for "fun factor" but a low score for originality.

DeMille writes with a good deal of wit. Dialog is particularly enjoyable. Corey is an easy character to like. Those factors and the novel's excitement are all good reasons to enjoy the story, which I did. Still, Radiant Angel's staleness and its predictable ending prevent me from placing it on the top shelf of thriller fiction.

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