Eric Van Lustbader

I first read this trilogy back in the mid-1980's and rated it pretty high then. Unfortunately book 1 does not fully stand the test of time. There are elements that remind me why I liked this story back in the day but there are other elements, (disjointed descriptions, klunky dialog, illogical settings, etc), that lowered my rating of this re-read.

In fairness to Lustbader, he imagined a post-apocalyptic underground 'silo' type of dwelling long before Hugh Howey came up with his take on it. show more Howey just did it better all around with a more detailed world, more interesting characters, better dialog, and a coherent delivery. show less

Eric Van Lustbader’s new novel, First Daughter is a philosophical book disguised as a suspense thriller. Jack McClure is an ATF agent, trying to cope with the death of his only child, and the breakup of his marriage. He is dyslexic and his whole life has struggled with the humiliation of keeping this a secret. His dyslexia has allowed his brain to perceive of unique patterns and has given him an ability to see the world in different ways, leading him to become one of the ATF’s top show more agents. Jack receives a call from an old friend, Edward Carson, asking his help in finding his kidnapped daughter, Allie. The case is complicated by the fact that Carson is the President-elect and due to be inaugurated in just a few weeks time. Even though the novel is ostensibly about the search and recovery of Allie, it deftly incorporates themes of faith and redemption, as well as highlighting the secular constitutional issues of today’s politics.

This is the first time I’ve read a novel by this author, and I’ve been really missing out on something good. The book is fast paced, with a fascinating portrayal of a man who’s lost everything except his career. His whole life, Jack has worked hard and made his career his top priority, and then in an instant, he learned just how skewed his priorities had become. This theme of the book rang true; too often we have to lose what’s the most important to us to notice how valuable it was. I was fascinated by the author’s depiction of Allie’s captivity. The psychological manipulation the kidnapper used on his victim was yet another realistic and well-written aspect of the novel.

Van Lustbader doesn’t shy from asking the “big” questions either. Faith is a large part of this novel. Cogent arguments are made for both the necessity of religious faith and the more pragmatic approach of a moral secularism. Morality itself is often addressed; where one man finds a compelling sense of moral obligation, another will see despicable manipulation. Often the author manages to warn us of political and religious agendas that are in direct opposition to a truly Constitutional form of government, all the while staying well within the boundaries of good story telling.

Pick up a copy, it’s a worthwhile read! show less

The Kobalt Dossier is the second book in the Evan Ryder series, and while I enjoyed it, there was definitely much less suspense and edge-of-your-seat thrill to this instalment than in the previous one. This one focused quite a bit on Evan's family background and because of this, the thriller portion of the novel seemed to take a backseat and got lost in the background story line. This had a huge impact on the book as a whole as I felt like I was reading a book about relationships rather than show more a thriller novel.

Evan is one of those characters where is must be really difficult for an author to create as you want a reader to be empathetic towards them, but also make the reader realize they are cold-blooded assassins at the same time. While the first book was able to achieve this balance, I don't think this book was able to do so as it went too far to the emotional side as Evan learned more about who were her parents and what happened to her as a child. It's not that this information wasn't important, but it did take away from the overall impact of the novel and Evan did not seem like the same character from the first book.

Benjamin is still my favourite character and I was glad to see him out in the field in this one. There was a bit of relationship-issue stuff I could have done away with, but for someone like him to survive in this world, he has to be a little bit bad-ass so it was nice to see that side of him. I also like that he was not quite so trusting of the information that Evan received and questioned her sources all of the time. Thank you Mr. Ben! You would think Evan would be more careful considering what happened in the first novel.

By the end of the book, I could see the manipulations of one of the characters to both Evan and Kobalt, but I still don't know why and for what purpose. A lot of the book seemed to be set up to set the stage for the next book in the series as the author needed to set up Evan and other characters for something that is going to happen. Unfortunately, this book felt more like a filler to me and was not as interesting, from a thriller point of view, as the first book. I definitely liked the background information we learned about Evan and her family, but thought the actual action was boring. I didn't buy into the reason for the kidnapping and I definitely did not buy into the conflict in this book as I thought it was silly and the explanation was both unbelievable and brushed over. Overall, the whole Kobalt story line frustrated me: I just can't buy into glossed over reasons for why people do things.

That little twist at the end though, is interesting. Written in alternating POV, the chapters are short and you do have to pay attention to all the nuances, which I like.

Verdict
The Kobalt Dossier focused quite a bit on Evan's background in order to set up the next book in this series. And while the psychological part was intriguing and I liked learning more about Evan, unfortunately, doing this put a damper on the thriller portion of the novel which I didn't really find all that interesting nor believable. However, a little twist in the ending makes me hopeful things will pick up quite a bit in the next book. While you could read this one as a standalone, I do recommend you pick up the first book in the series to get some background information on our characters and what is happening. show less

I’ll be the first person to admit that political thrillers are far from my genre of choice – typically I stick more towards the fantasy and sci-fi end of the fiction spectrum. But I’ll also be the first to tell you that Eric Van Lustbader’s latest book was pleasantly surprising in the way it kept me involved to the point where I was on the edge of my metaphoric seat the whole time.

The Nemesis Manifesto features a whole cast of wonderfully written and engaging characters but focuses show more its efforts on the enigmatic Evan Ryder, a slightly jaded and incredibly intelligent operative for an unnamed arm of the DOD. When we first meet Evan, she has been called in by her boss for a special assignment that has led more than one fine agent to their death. Now, with the pressure mounting and the stakes higher than ever, Evan must discover who the nefarious and deadly Nemesis is before its kill list can be completed. It’s a race against time as Evan fights not only unseen forces but also her own fractured memories, which tell her there might be more to this Nemesis than she – or anyone else – anticipated.

Although the prologue started off a little slow to me and was subsequently hard for me to get into, the rest of the book overall was a fantastic thrill ride packed full of adventure and intrigue. In every chapter lies a new mystery, an exciting twist, or a heart-pounding action sequence. There are well over a handful of key players in the book, all of which have separate but interconnecting plotlines – and their own agendas. I think under ordinary circumstances, this would be quite confusing to read, but somehow Van Lustbader succeeds in making all of these individual and intricate characters and their plotlines surprisingly clear and easy to follow. Van Lustbader is equally successful in his ability to make long conversations about politics and government engaging rather than droll. Add this to the fact that Evan, the very definition of calm, cool, and collected – not to mention effective – is a female operative (even Van Lustbader throws in a time or two that female operatives have been sorely underused) who always seems to be ten steps ahead of the opposition is the star character and you have a winner on your hands for sure. I can’t say that I enjoyed all the female operatives. I found Brenda rather exasperating both for her inability to see the bigger picture and her foolhardy decision to soldier on when that was clearly the wrong choice. But I was easily able to overlook that fact because of how interesting the other characters were.

The Nemesis Manifesto was gripping and thrilling, with unexpected elements, plot twists, relevant politics, and plenty of betrayals. Even if political thrillers aren’t normally your thing, I highly recommend giving it a fair shot – you might be surprised.

*I received an ARC from BookishFirst in exchange for an honest review show less