Liar's Paradox by Taylor Stevens

Published by Kensington on December 18, 2018

As the first book in the Jack and Jill series (currently consisting of this novel and Liar’s Legacy), Liar’s Paradox introduces Clare and her two children. In a backstory that evolves into the central story, we learn that while Clare worked for the CIA as an agent in Moscow, she ran into some trouble with her handler, a fellow named Boris who wanted to take her to bed. Clare was already in bed with Dimitry, the son of the Ministry of Defense. Her rejection of Boris places her in a precarious position, as does her pregnancy by Dimitry, who might or might not be a KGB agent. Clare expected Dimitry to join her when she escaped from Moscow but he never made the rendezvous, for reasons she didn’t understand at the time.

The pregnancy turned into the twins known as Jack and Jill. Like most of the other characters, including Clare, they have used a variety of names during their lives. By the time they were born, Clare had amassed a following of enemies, both inside and outside the CIA. She knew that children would be a vulnerability, so she raised them to survive without her. Their survival skills at this point are well honed, but the consequence of Clare’s unorthodox parenting is that her children hate her. Or maybe it’s sort of a love-hate relationship. They don’t want Clare’s enemies to kill her, if only because they would prefer to kill her themselves.

As the story begins, Jill is a 26-year-old drug addict with an enabling lover named Robert. Jack kidnaps her (the only safe way to deal with her) because Clare wants to see them. In a panic, Robert goes to the police and the media give Jack and Jill a troubling amount of publicity. When they arrive at Clare’s home in the woods, however, they discover that it is under assault. A fellow named Holden has accepted a contract from the Broker to kidnap Clare, an endeavor that leads to the death of most of his team members. Ironically, Jill has taken a few contracts from the Broker herself, the better to make use of her skills when she’s not high.

Much of the plot develops Clare’s backstory, including her search over the years for Dimitry, who seems to be resurfacing, and about whom Jack and Jill know little. In the present, the plot turns into a credible action story. Clare finds herself bound and under guard in a vessel at port. As Jack and Jill try to find her, they need to go through Holden, whose nature turns out to be a surprise.

Taylor Stevens is the reigning master at creating damaged female thriller protagonists. Jill is an intriguing character because of her animosity toward her mother and, for that matter, all of society. At times, she is nearly feral in her reaction to others, including Jack. When she gains control of herself, she is smart and extraordinarily capable, although still driven by emotions she barely recognizes.

While Clare is entering her senior years, she is still cunning, devious, and deadly. Taken together, Clare and Jill are two of the most formidable female action heroes in thrillerworld. As she always does, Stevens achieves a perfect balance of characterization and action in this novel and in the one that follows.

RECOMMENDED

Liars' Legacy by Taylor Stevens

Published by Kensington on December 31, 2019

The Russians are up to no good in Liars' Legacy, the second novel in Taylor Stevens’ Jack and Jill series. An American intelligence bureaucrat named Hayes is also up to no good, in the sense that he wants to further his own interests rather than the country’s.

The plot involves “a son trying to escape his mother’s past and hoping to find a father.” The father is Dimitri Vasiliev, a KGB officer, and the mother is Clare, who at the time of her pregnancy was an American agent in Moscow. Jack and Jill have been shaped by Clare to be world-class assassins. As one might expect, they didn’t receive the kind of nurturing from Clare that children crave, but like Johnny Cash’s legendary Boy Named Sue, adversity imposed by a parent teaches them to survive. That talent comes in handy, given the number of killers who try to take them out as the story unfolds.

Other key characters are also in the killing business. Kara works for a nebulous government agency that has decided to kill the assassins on the Broker’s list, a list that includes Chris Holden. Kara is an analyst rather than a trigger puller, but events force her into the field when she is assigned to a tactical team that chases a dangerous target — until the target starts chasing her team. Up the chain of command from Kara is Liv Wilson, “a politics-playing, ass kissing ladder climber,” a “woman who saw competence in other women as a threat to her own position and who’d sabotage in a hundred petty ways."

The story begins in the aftermath of the Broker’s death, the Broker having been established in Liar’s Paradox as “the man who played king against king and bartered souls for national secrets, who’d negotiated hits between buyers and assassins, and who’d forced order onto lawless chaos.” A couple of hit squads seem to be following Holden on a flight from Dallas to Frankfurt, but maybe things are not as they seem. Holden is following Jack and Jill, Jack’s ticket having been purchased by someone who claimed the ability to connect him with Dimitri, the father that the twins have never met. Jill is along for the ride to watch Jack’s back, although she hopes that the search for Dimitry will “put meaning to their mother’s past and make some sense of an upturned childhood.” Jack’s feelings about Clare are less complex; he hates her for forcing him to live a life of lies, always looking over his shoulder for real or imagined threats.

Frankfurt is a step on a journey to Berlin, where the players converge. The twins are tracking their father while the Russians, the Americans, and Holden are tracking the twins. Later destinations in the journey include Prague and the United States, where events transpire that include a Russian plan to sow chaos by assassinating one or more American politicians. Jack might be tasked with one of those killings in a twisty plot that always has the reader wondering whether Jack, Jill, Holden, and Kara will eventually succeed in killing each other as well as their targets or pursuers.

Stevens manages to keep the story moving at a steady pace without dumbing down the plot. She writes action scenes that compare favorably with the best action-thriller writers. Characterization is nevertheless her strength. Holden thinks Jill is “a few sane days shy of crazy,” an apt observation given her love-hate relationship with Jack, Clare, and the world. Holden, who was “delivered as a trophy” to the man who ordered his mother’s death, is nearly as complex as the twins. Yet while none of the characters act out of high moral purpose, save possibly for Kara, they are all capable of kindness and empathy.

Taylor Stevens has earned critical acclaim as a thriller writer, but I’m not sure she has the same following as lesser writers who churn out books that readers might find more comforting. Her childhood history is a compelling story and her experience overcoming adversity plainly informs her writing. I enjoyed her Vanessa Michael Munroe series and I’m now an equal fan of Jack and Jill.

RECOMMENDED

The Mask by Taylor Stevens

Published by Crown on June 30, 2015

Arriving in Osaka, Vanessa Michael Munroe thinks she is finally home. She is back with Bradford, the only man who can tame her savage instincts. From nearly the first page, however, the reader is forewarned that Vanessa will soon be troubled about a choice that Bradford makes.

Bradford has taken an assignment as a security consultant for a Japanese firm that believes trade secrets are being stolen by one of its employees. He is soon accused of murder. Although Michael knows that the accusation is false, she is upset with Bradford for reasons that make her seem uncharacteristically like a drama queen. In any event, getting to the bottom of why Bradford has been framed becomes Michael's mission.

The Mask presents a grim view of Japanese business culture. Its portrayal of the Japanese system of criminal justice is even darker. Whether the perspective is accurate I couldn't say, but it is at the heart of the novel's plot. Had this story been set in the United States I would have found the plot unconvincing, given fairly obvious evidence (revealed early in the novel) that Bradford has been set up. Perhaps exculpatory evidence has less value in Japan. In any event, my unfamiliarity with the culture allowed me to suspend my disbelief, which allowed me to buy into the plot.

The story doesn't have the power or drama of some earlier Michael Munroe novels, but the intricate plot is satisfying, action scenes are fun, and the pace is swift. The Mask adds little to Munroe's character development but it does add a worthy opponent to her growing list of adversaries (described as two tigers meeting by chance in the forest). I would have enjoyed seeing that character developed more fully but perhaps Taylor Stevens has plans for her in a future novel. I would like that, but whatever the plan might be, I look forward to reading the next installment in Munroe's effort to find a balanced life.

RECOMMENDED

The Informationist by Taylor Stevens

Published by Crown on March 8, 2011

Vanessa Michael Munroe is a dangerous loner who bears emotional and physical scars, reminiscent of Stieg Larsson's Lisbeth Salander. Like Salander, Munroe is adept at acquiring information. While Salander relies upon her skills as a computer hacker, Munroe infiltrates cultures, sometimes posing as a man, working in developing countries for private businesses and organizations like the IMF. Despite her desperate need for down time and the fact that it really isn't her line of work, she accepts an assignment to locate a wealthy businessman's daughter who was last seen in Namibia four years earlier. The businessman insists that Munroe work with Miles Bradford, a mercenary whose job is to keep her safe. The search takes Munroe to Central Africa, where she has some history that she would prefer to remain buried. Yet she remains a product of her inescapable past: fierce and determined, but tormented by the preaching voices that keep her awake at night. Munroe travels to some nasty places and encounters even nastier people who would prefer that the circumstances of the young woman's disappearance remain a mystery. She also meets up with the life she left behind, including a close friend: a gunrunner from whom she walked away nine years earlier.

If the gunrunner brings to mind Humphrey Bogart, Munroe would have to be a warped composite of Jessica Alba, Angelina Jolie, Uma Thurman, and all three Charlie's Angels. She's a great character: an intuitive, intelligent action hero who speaks multiple languages, practices martial arts, and is handy with a knife; a haunted nomad with a horrific past whose understandable ferocity is barely restrained (except when it's not). She has a (largely unfulfilled) desire for romance that conflicts with her instinct for self-preservation, adding edginess to her character. Munroe has enough appeal to support a series of sequels (which is probably the author's plan). Certainly there are aspects of her persona that aren't fully developed; perhaps Stevens intends to complete the picture in future novels. The other characters have been requisitioned from central casting (Daniel Craig as the mercenary, I think) but Stevens gives them enough personality to keep them from being complete stereotypes.

The Informationist takes place in a setting that will be unfamiliar to most readers, as it was to me, but Stevens brings it alive. She paints a vivid picture of Cameroon and Equatorial Guinea. The African locale is a welcome departure from thrillers set in Uzbekistan or Los Angeles. Munroe's writing style is straightforward; her capable prose isn't stirring (that's rare in a thriller) but it is more than adequate to tell the rapidly moving story. There are times when the narrative is a bit over the top, particularly in its description of Munroe's "blood lust" as well as her tendency to bind people with duct tape and point guns at them (when one of the characters told her she had to stop doing that to him, I had to agree). The last part of the novel turns into a guessing game (just who is betraying whom?) and the unexpected resolution is satisfying.

Sensitive readers should be aware that they might be disturbed by some of the more violent scenes in the novel, particularly those involving Munroe's memories of her teenage years: readers who would be put off by graphic descriptions of abuse involving minors should stay away from this novel. For those who can cope, however, The Informationist offers a unique thriller experience that most fans of the genre should enjoy. 

RECOMMENDED