Noel Hynd

I liked the way this story began. It started in a morgue, left you kind of hanging, and then in chapter two it takes you back two months earlier, so you can see how you came to be at the morgue. This was another fast-paced action packed mystery.

Federal agent Alexandra ("Alex") LaDuca will this time travel to Egypt to investigate the sighting of a former CIA agent who everyone thought was dead. She will be in the midst of a deadly game of double cross, as she tries to figure out how the show more events in Kiev (book one) and in Madrid (book two) all fit together here in Cairo. She finds herself getting to meet crooks, killers, spies and some good guys, but she will survive on her wits and training. Alex will also say goodbye to a "friend"? in this book, who has been in all three books in this series. All in all, I enjoyed this series although there is very little romance, it is filled with intrigue and danger. show less

Alexandra DaLuca, a US Treasury agent, is holidaying in Barcelona, recovering from personal tragedy that occurred six months before and from nearly being gunned down in the Paris Metor four months earlier. Her boss in Washington asks her to accept an assignment in Madrid, to join an international team that will try to track down a religious relic known as the Pieta of Malta, stolen from a Madrid museum just two weeks before. There are fears that the proceeds from sale of the treasure will be show more used to finance further terrorist activity in Spain. Alex is fluent in Spanish, has some background in art history, is very IT savvy, and already on the spot. Nor is she your ordinary Treasury officer. She is a killer.

By the time we meet Alex, the reader is already aware of discontent in the radical Islamic movement in Spain, of a man who is importing explosives into Spain and of the death of a Chinese mystic in Switzerland. We know these elements will all, somehow, be connected.

MIDNIGHT IN MADRID is a thriller, with a tight time frame, with short punchy chapters, threads that are being advanced simultaneously, and a real feeling of a race against time, as terrorists tunnel under Madrid.

While MIDNIGHT IN MADRID is not a particularly long novel, one of my problems with it is that the author wanted to tell me so much, and left me little to research for myself. The information was comprehensive and ranged from explanations about Christian iconography, philosophy of religion, a history of modern art theft, lessons in the history of the world, of terrorism, of Al-Qaeda. At times there was travelogue, and the result was that I felt that the author wanted to talk about moral issues, to justify the USA's anti-terrorism methods, and that his characters were his mouthpiece. There was a lot that could have been trimmed. It felt that he needed me to understand that the novel has a solid factual basis, but it also gives him the opportunity to postulate some pretty unconvincing theories.

The second problem I had was being told soon after Alex appeared in the novel that she is a Christian. That caused me discomfort right from the start, and I then had further problems when I found out that she had (reluctantly) killed someone in Kiev. she prayed that God would someday have mercy on her.

I realise though there are many who will be able to enjoy MIDNIGHT IN MADRID without these qualms. show less

Special Agent Alexandra LaDuca ("Alex") is on loan from the U.S. Dept. of the Treasury, and is "tapped to accompany a Secret Service team during an American Presidential visit to Ukraine". Her specific assignment is to keep a close eye on Yuri Federov, a charming and notorious gangster in the area. But all is not as it seems and connecting the dots will take Alex through many dangers, heartache and disbelief. She will even question her faith.

This was labeled a "fast-paced espionage thriller" show more and I believe it lived up to that description. There was a lot of attention to detail and background as one reads through this book. And trying to keep up with who the "bad guys" are versus the "good guys", keeps your mind thinking throughout the story. show less

This must be either a dream or I must live on Mars and only came down for a visit, at which time I read an earthling book,"Ghosts," that I did not understand. That's the only way I can reconcile the reviews of this book with the book I actually read. This is one of the most inadvertently hilarious "dramas" I've ever read. The spelling errors were amazing, and frequently quite funny. In one very "dramatic" scene, the ghost is threatening the protagonist with what he's going to do. He say he's show more going to be..(turn the page).."Wreacking havoc!" I burst out laughing, "What? He's going to wreack havoc?" I'm suddenly jerked out of watching the action of this "dramatic" scene right back onto my couch with a book in my hand. There were also problems with "continuity." At one point the protagonist made a point of putting something under the couch where he is sleeping, but when he gets it out, he takes it from under his pillow. While the plot was juvenile, at times it was fair, but how could you get into it enough to get "really scared," (as apparently readers were), when you kept laughing? show less