Liars & Thieves

Carmellini and Grafton make a great pair. I enjoy the shift in story telling from third person when dealing with Grafton, and the first person with Carmellini. The story has plenty of twists and turns, and keeps you hooked to the last page.

I always enjoy. Stephen Coonts, & this book was no exception. It was fast paced and kept my attention. The plot, however, was just too implausible. In some books like this, it seems like the plot just sort of hangs there in the background and occasionally steps into the picture to justify all the action, which Mr. Coonts does very well as usual.

This novel features as its main character Tommy Carmellini, a former burglar and CIA operative. Tommy’s old girlfriend, Dorsey O’Shea shows up and asks him to break into a house and retrieve some sex tapes. Not thinking much of it, Tommy agrees to the job. Later, the CIA sends him to a safe house where a Russian defector is being debriefed. The place is a massacre, and Tommy is forced to flee. Now he faces accusations that he was responsible for it and is being hunted down. The plot includes conspiracies, evil politicians, and betrayals to go around.

There was nothing overly original about this plot. Most of the elements have been done and done again. Style wise, the novel was solid but unspectacular. There are various twists and turns along the way to keep things moving. The characters are interesting. Although it was a decent read, there is nothing remotely memorable about this novel. It’s the kind of book that you will forget about shortly after reading it.

Carl Alves – author of Blood Street

Stephen Coonts is a great writer but the editing staff put this book out with spelling errors. I've never before seen the letter "O" spelled "C )" and I.m sure there are a couple of hundred of these or more in the book. Never before have I seen a spelling error in any of Coont's books so I've decided to blame the proofing staff.

Former burglar and current CIA operative Tommy Carmellini is ready for a boring week guarding an agency safe house. Instead, he walks in on an operation--someone has taken out the CIA guards, set the safe house on fire, and has left only a pretty translator and one of the defecting KGB agent's seven bags of documents intact. The safe house really was secret and the equipment the attackers use can only be government. Carmellini is convinced this isn't the Russians protecting anything, it's a domestic operation--which means there's a traitor in his own chain of command. Together with the translator, Carmellini goes underground--trying both to stay alive and to learn who might be behind the killings.

When neither the shootout at the safe house nor a subsequent battle outside the translator's home is picked up by the newspapers, Carmellini realizes the traitor reaches way up--perhaps all the way to the White House. With the help of a retired Admiral, Carmellini comes up with a plan to smoke out the truth--no matter who gets in the way.

Author Stephen Coonts combines constant action with a tough and likable protagonist--Carmellini's history of burglary making him a bit more human and sympathetic. LIARS AND THIEVES is a hard book to put down and the action--and body count--are intense. I thought Coonts relied a bit heavily on coincidence--allowing Carmellini to arrive first to pick up the Russian defector seemed a bit contrived, but the continual reappearance of sexy ex-lover Dorsey O'Shea even more so. Still, with the story pushing on like a tidal wave, it was easy to overlook these, along with Carmellini's casual attitude toward the opposite sex and just hang on waiting for the next surge of violence.

This is the story of Tommy Carmilini who is arriving at an address to help guard an X-Russian defector. When he arrives everyone is dead. He does not find the defector who happened to get out and into the forest to escape. In the process, however, he loses his memory. The main mystery is - who is trying to have the defector murdered while under protection of the U.S. Govt. Tommy Carmilini is not very likable or unlikable - I just felt neutral about him. Even his best friend runs hot and cold about him.

It's as interesting as enjoyable when a successful author branches his characters out. Naturally, 'if done well' is the caveat.
Mr. Coonts does an admirable job here making the young, wisecracking Tommy Carmellini the bedrock about which to build "Liars and Thieves." Kind of like an offshoot of successful television series in the '70's, Michael Connelly did this with the Harry Bosch and Terry McCaleb books.
This is a pretty good story reminiscent of a great old movie, "3 Days of the Condor," where a CIA agent returns from buying coffee and donuts for his colleagues in a 'safehouse' (in the Robert Redford role) only to find every one of his colleagues has been murdered in the 15 minutes he was on the 'donut run.'
Here Tommy Carmellini is assigned guard duty at a CIA safe house only to stumble upon the killing of all of the occupants. The story starts off with a bang along with the natural, "why?'
That Mr. Coonts keeps this from us for several hundred pages is a pretty good indication of the level of his skill. As I read along getting into the 300's, I still wasn't certain how he was going to tie it all together. Really, quite an interesting read that is a good mystery/airplane/train/beach/summertime novel.
Detracting from it were little oddities that I found . . .well, odd. It seems believable that the CIA would hire ex-felons to do their undercover/confidential informant work. I have trouble believing they would hire two of them and put them on the weekly payrole in their own offices inside the CIA castle.
Secondly, for a guy who professes love for a former colleague as much as Tommy does, he sure sleeps around a lot. I have no problem with that. It just seems Mr. Coonts is appealing to conflicting sides of individual natures.
The character of Tommy Carmellini is complex and he's a nice adjunct to the "tough as a two dollar steak" loyal Navy Vet, Jake Grafton. But, how can I say this? In "Liars & Thieves," he's on his own. Maybe he should be more focused and less like a fraternity boy. A fraternity boy with an M-5 automatic rifle. 4 Stars. Recommended. Larry Scantlebury

Stephen Coonts' latest novel, Liars & Thieves, is a reasonably good techo-espionage thriller set in the United States. Tommy Carmellini is a CIA agent who happens to stumble upon a CIA safehouse as a massacre is going down. The disturbing part is that the killers are most definitely from the US and look professional (either military or law enforcement). Carmellini is able to rescue one lady who is a Russian interpreter debriefing a Russian defector that was an archivist for the government and copied seven cases of materials over the years. The defector is able to escape on his own, but his age and failing memory leaves him in a state of confusion as to where he is and what's happening. The killers figure out who Carmellini is, and he (and anyone around him) is now a target of someone who appears to be high up in the government, and wants everything related to the defector (including the defector himself) eliminated to protect a secret. Carmellini enlists the help of Jake Grafton (a major character from earlier Coontz novels) to get to the bottom of the mystery and to stay alive.
I'd give this a higher rating if it weren't for a stretch before the final showdown takes place. Through the first half of the book, someone is after Carmellini is being hunted every time he turns around. Once he decides to go to New York to try a last effort to uncover the truth, he ends up being left alone for a number of days while he sets up survellience and listening bugs. Then at the end, he's conveniently a walking target again and nearly gets killed at every turn. The break just didn't seem to fit too well in the story flow. That fact notwithstanding, it's an entertaining read that will entertain you for awhile.

Stephen Coonts has for several years been busily shouldering his way to the front of the pack of military thriller writers. Seemingly incapable of writing badly, he demonstrates a familiar acquaintance with the geewhiz technological side of the genre while choosing to focus primarily on the personalities between the machinery. Coonts has been most successful with his novels that feature Admiral Jake Grafton. Many of Coonts's longtime readers, however, have clamored for a book featuring Tommy Carmellini, the burglar turned CIA operative who has been one of Coonts's more interesting creations. The readers get their wish --- and then some --- with LIARS & THIEVES.
LIARS & THIEVES is played out against a backdrop that combines the vestiges of the Cold War with a contemporary political convention. Carmellini is assigned to a tour of guard duty at a CIA safe house where U.S. government operatives are debriefing a KGB archivist who has defected to the United States and who has had access to --- and copies of --- records of every intelligence operation that the KGB ever ran. When Carmellini arrives on-site, however, he stumbles into a commando attack --- undertaken by American operatives --- that appears to have left everyone dead, save for an attractive American translator. Carmellini escapes with her, but soon finds that the translator has an agenda all her own.
One other person, however, has also escaped the safe house carnage: it is the archivist, who is suffering from traumatic amnesia. Carmellini suddenly finds himself blamed for the carnage and is potentially in the scope of virtually every law enforcement officer in the country. He must rely on his wits, street smarts and contacts on both sides of the law to determine what was behind the attack on the safe house and to escape intact from the mysterious forces that are pursuing him.
Carmellini turns to his mentor and friend, Jake Grafton, for help. Carmellini and Grafton gradually come to learn that the archivist has information regarding a KGB operation that involved the use of an individual who is now in the highest levels of the United States government, an individual with the power, and the desire, to stop the information of his traitorous activities from ever being revealed. The pursuit of Carmellini and the archivist leads from West Virginia through the mean backstreets of Washington, D.C., all the way to a political convention held in New York City where Carmellini plays a dangerous game that involves discovering the identity of his pursuer while trying desperately to stay alive.
LIARS & THIEVES has little of the military derring-do of Coonts's previous works; readers who have not previously treated themselves to a Coonts thriller should definitely pick up this one, which is closer to James Bond than Jack Ryan in spirit. Coonts continues his practice of using "real world" situations as a basis for his plots, using The Venona Papers and the political aspirations of presidential spouses as plot devices, and it's great fun to figure out who is who in Coonts's fictitious world. If Coonts is intending to pass the torch from Grafton to Carmellini, LIARS & THIEVES bodes extremely well for Coonts's future projects.
--- Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub

"Wages of Sin" (European title, published as "Liars & Thieves" in N. America) is a quite different book from the Jake Grafton series that made Stephen Coonts famous. Personally, I don't like the change in style.

I'm a fan of thrillers, especially international thrillers and techno-thrillers. I like most of Stephen Coonts' books and consider them to be "the thinking man's thriller", a notch up on the intellectual scale from Tom Clancy, for example.

"Wages of Sin" is different from the Jake Grafton series in many ways. To start with, the main character is Tommy Carmellini, a CIA operative who plays a secondary role in the last four Jake Grafton books.

Tommy Carmellini reminds me of Mike Hammer, the fictional hero of Mickey Spillane's books. He's physically big, he's tough and doesn't shun violence, he's great with the fast-paced repartee and he doesn't claim to be all that smart. Women find him attractive (what's with these silly women anyway?) and he beds them without much emotional involvement. And he tells his story in the first person.

Fortunately, Stephen Coonts is not 100% loyal to the first-person style. As the book progresses there are more and more passages that tell parts of the story that Tommy Carmellini can't tell because he's not at that location.

There is a lot of violence in this book, something that doesn't particularly appeal to me. The body count rises slowly but surely through the story, with Tommy personally killing 13 of the "bad guys"! These shootouts and other fights are described in detail, and are exciting at first, but about half way through the book it gets tedious.

The romantic (to use the word very loosely) subplots are very minor. Tommy succeeds (without trying or particularly enjoying it) in bedding three of the female characters. But if Tommy doesn't really care much one way or the other, why should we?

The weirdest scene in the whole book is when Tommy makes love to one of the women in a bugged hotel room, knowing that his best friend is monitoring the bugs! The fact that he doesn't particularly like the lady in question just added to my incredulity!

A general problem with the whole book is that the characters are poorly presented and not very believable. Surprising, considering that Stephen Coonts is otherwise very good at writing books populated with real people.

In particular, Tommy Carmellini doesn't come across as a believable person. To make it worse, he isn't a person that I find all that appealing. He's great at shooting holes in the bad guys and making clever remarks, but I'd prefer a leading "good guy" who is smarter and displays more real human characteristics.

On the plus side, the plot is pretty good. The story is partly based on the real-life defection of Vasili Mitrokhin, the KGB archivist who arrived in Great Britain in 1992 with six suitcases of notes from classified KGB files! Mix this with an American presidential nomination and people in high places with a past that is damaging to their political careers and you have an exciting cocktail.

Still, the good plot can't compensate for the disappointing characters and the repetitive violence, so I'm only giving three stars to "Wages of Sin".

Rennie Petersen

Stephen Coonts started out as an aviation writer, with his hero Jake Grafton piloting a bomber over North VietNam during the late unpleasantness in Southeast Asia. He managed to stretch that genre way past what you would have expected, and kept the character going for perhaps 8 or so novels. At some point, things have taken a turn, and the books have become more espionage-oriented. While Coonts is a knowledgeable guy, you have to think that most of his knowledge is about flying planes rather than spying on people.

Nonetheless, Coonts has created a second character, Tommy Carmellini. Tommy's basically Robert Wagner's character from the old TV show "It Takes a Thief" but updated. For those who don't remember, Wagner's best known to the modern audiences as "No. 2" in the Austin Powers movies. Back in the day, he was Alexander Mundy, the handsome jewel thief caught stealing and put to work by the CIA in exchange for commuting his sentence. Tommy's story is pretty much exactly that, except he actually does other work for the CIA, and even has an office.

In the current offering, Tommy gets sent to a Safe House in rural Virginia to do a week's work as a sentry, and arrives to find the sentries he's replacing shot to death. There's an ensuing gunfight, chases, more gunfights, more chases, more gunfights, a bit of spying, more gunfights, romance for a bit, more gunfights, another chase, and then (you guessed) more gunfights. Tommy must shoot a dozen people in this book, and given that he tells you early on that he's not that good at it, you have to wonder how long this guy's luck is going to last. Since he's the narrator, you kinda know he's not going to get killed.

Grafton appears in the middle of the book, and the gunfights are reasonably well-done, but there are too many of them (in case you didn't get my drift above) and they aren't very believable. The motive for the shootings becomes obvious (at least generally) about halfway through the book, so the revelation of the motive at the end is sort of a let-down. Even so, I enjoyed this book, and it's definitely a good beach read or something of that nature.

Non-stop page-turner. Excellent story. Non-stop action. Unpredictable. All the makings of a great thriller. Read it in just a few days. Kind of had a Jason Bourne feeling to it as CIA agent Tommy Carmellini is mistakenly singled out by other agents and has a hit on his head. An element of mystery as Carmellini flees not knowing for certain who he can trust. Has several twists at the end of the story. I think I'm going to enjoy the Carmellini series and more by this author.

Liars and Thieves accomplishes a great deal in the first 150 pages. The action is quick and the story moves along rather well. It deals with a CIA officer that is visiting a relatively secret CIA camp. He shows up only to find dead CIA personnel throughout. He realizes that the killers are still there so Tommy Carmellini has to figure out what is going on and how to get out alive. He ends up escaping and running and trying to decide on how best to proceed to find out what happened. He soon discovers that the FBI is also after him.

The book continues a brisk pace when Admiral Jake Grafton becomes involved. In fact, the reader is drawn to Grafton as being a strong interesting character that is no nonsense.

My problem with the book is it begins to delve too much into politics, both american and russian and it loses a lot of its more exciting edge. Most of that is kept out of the first 15-200 pages, but then it dominates the final third of the book. Though there are some solid action and dialogue scenes during the final third, it is often put in the background as Coontz attempts to explain the politics of what is going on.

As I mentioned, I give a lukewarm review. 5 stars for the first two thirds of the book...2 stars for the final third.

Mini-Review: "Liars & Thieves" by Stephen Coonts

I have many things for which I am indebted to my friend, John Byington. One of those debts is that fact that he introduced me to author Stephen Coonts - not to be confused with Dean Koontz! A few years ago, John, an Annapolis graduate and former Navy aviator, made the following observation: "You have come to know quite a few of us Navy guys who were pilots. If you really want to understand the world of naval aviation, you should read Stephen Coonts' "Flight of the Intruder."

I did read "Flight of the Intruder," and vowed to read as many of Coonts' other books as I could. Last year I enjoyed reading "Liberty," and I have just completed the riveting "Liars & Thieves." Coonts is a Viet Nam combat veteran and naval aviator, who went on to earn a law degree. He writes with a rapier wit and an acerbic and sardonic view of a world inhabited with a wide assortment of "bad guys," and a few old-fashioned heroes. Here is an example of his wry gift for introducing a character and setting the right tone:

"Obviously Dorsey had not considered the possibility that Willie might refuse to tell her whatever she asked. Few men ever had. She was young, beautiful, rich, the modern trifectas for females. She came by her dough the old-fashioned way - she inherited it. Her parents died in a car wreck shortly after she was born. Her grandparents who raised her passed away while she was partying at college, trying to decide if growing up would be worth the effort. Now she lived in a monstrous old brick mansion on five hundred acres, all that remained of a colonial plantation, on the northern bank of the Potomac thirty miles upriver from Washington. It was a nice little getaway if you were worth a couple hundred million, and she was." (Page 2)

The plot of this book involves double-dealing all the way from the Kremlin to the West Wing of the White House, as the two heroes, Tommy Carmellini and retired Admiral Jake Grafton, lay their lives on the line to try to save a former KGB official who has defected to the West. I won't spoil the treat for you by revealing anything else about the story line.

I could not put the book down. What else is there to say about a book!

Enjoy.

This violent tale of betrayal and desperation has more corpses than it does words. There are shootings and strangulations, massive bloodlettings, as well as a hitman crushed beneath the wheels of an automobile. At one point our hero even uses an ink pen to puncture the throat of a bad guy. Bombs go off, assault teams infiltrate the suburbs, and so on. You get the idea.

Beneath all this bloodshed there's something resembling a story, but certainly not enough of one to get in the way of the violence. Coonts has an easy writing style, which makes for fun reading. He's also really good about not taking himself too seriously, which is a temptation that overwhelms many an author. If anything, Coonts seems to be having a good time, here, throwing in the corpses to keep things moving. His tone is jokey and carefree, so you'll enjoy a laugh or two along the way. It isn't high literature, but I wasn't under that impression when I opened the book.

With Liars & Thieves, Coonts features Tommy Carmellini as the lead character, pushing Jake Grafon, the famed hero and mainstay of many of Coonts' works, to a secondary (but still important) role. Although Carmellini had been a character in recent novels, Grafton still was in the spotlight. Now Coonts makes the shift from Grafton to Carmellini with great effect, leveraging the traditional strengths of the Grafton character while extending and deepening Carmellini's character. Liars & Thieves is told from the first-person perspective of Carmellini, which serves to effectively provide a deep look into his heart and the inner workings of his mind. Character development on some of the secondary characters adds to the storyline as well. Bottom line: Liars & Thieves is a strong read. Despite some editing snafus, it provides a fresh perspective along with a sense of familiarity. The action is fast paced, with twists that keep the reader turning the pages. Don't wait for the paperback......read Liars & Thieves now.

Former burglar Tommy Carmellini now works for the CIA. His current assignment is to inspect security at the Greenbriar River Facility, a CIA safe house in the Alleghany Mountains in Virginia. When he reaches his destination, Tommy finds the complex under attack. He manages to kill a goon, rescuing translator Kelly Erlanger and a suitcase of KGB files.
Kelly informs Tommy that the resident of the safe house, former KGB archivist Mikhail Goncharov obviously had information that someone wants kept buried. Now someone wants Tommy and Kelly dead and willing to murder anyone associated with the operative including his partner Willie the Wire and his former lover Dorsey O'Shea, who just asked him to steal some porno tapes starring her. With the assailants in pursuit, Tommy, Kelly, and now Dorsey flee to Rehoboth Beach where retired Rear Admiral Jake Grafton offers temporary sanctuary while the team tries to sort out why someone wants them dead.
Carmellini in his first major appearance (bit player in CUBA) is an intriguing protagonist who provides an intriguing counterpoint to Stephen Coonts' prime superstar, Grafton. The story line is action-packed, but the conspiracy has been often told so it somewhat lacks freshness even with several interesting twists and a fine cast. LIARS AND THIEVES will entertain newcomers and the author's fan base will enjoy, but not at the quality of a Grafton led thriller.
Harriet Klausner

This novel is episodic and sometimes rambling, with little character development (except perhaps Willie and Sarah). Starting about half way through, the story becomes confusing from time to time when the author confuses characters (he writes "Dorsey" when he should have said "Sarah", for instance). Where was the editor? The worst case was when the protagonist of the 1st person narrative (Tommy Carmellini) is speaking and says he is driving, then says that Tommy Carmellini (along with other characters) was in the back of the van. Huh?
Lots of "padding" with travelogues, weather reports, and irrelevant details that go nowhere. Most of the book is a long chase sequence with the body count going up, up, and up.
I could have better spent my book dollars elsewhere. I will, next time, by choosing another author.

Have been a fan of Steve Coonts, a former shipmate, for a long time, since "Flight of the Intruder" and all the rest. Hate to see Jake Grafton "retired" but that's more on me than on Jake, as I'm retired now, too. Won't bother with synopsizing the plot, which is no wilder than many of this genre, but the body count is VERY high, and as one other reviewer pointed out, there are many editing oversights. Carmellini is a Spillane-esque character: kills people without a glance, sleeps around with no apparent regard for the medical risks, maintains a rugged physique with no more exercise than an occasional run, survives everything shot, thrown or exploded at/under him, and also does throwaway gag lines. I didn't find him all that appealing, just as I don't care for Dirk Pitt, Clive Cussler's supermensch. There is also some mystery about Jake being a "consultant" who is still able to make a phone call and get a Delta Force team on site, no questions asked. Fortunately, the story moves along at such a high velocity that these are nit-picky details that only emerge after you've turned a page and then suddenly wonder "hey, how did THAT happen?" If you don't expect anything profound, it's a decent beach read.

"Liars & Thieves" (published as "Wages of Sin" in Europe) is a quite different book from the Jake Grafton series that made Stephen Coonts famous. Personally, I don't like the change in style.

I'm a fan of thrillers, especially international thrillers and techno-thrillers. I like most of Stephen Coonts' books and consider them to be "the thinking man's thriller", a notch up on the intellectual scale from Tom Clancy, for example.

"Liars & Thieves" is different from the Jake Grafton series in many ways. To start with, the main character is Tommy Carmellini, a CIA operative who plays a secondary role in the last four Jake Grafton books.

Tommy Carmellini reminds me of Mike Hammer, the fictional hero of Mickey Spillane's books. He's physically big, he's tough and doesn't shun violence, he's great with the fast-paced repartee and he doesn't claim to be all that smart. Women find him attractive (what's with these silly women anyway?) and he beds them without much emotional involvement. And he tells his story in the first person.

Fortunately, Stephen Coonts is not 100% loyal to the first-person style. As the book progresses there are more and more passages that tell parts of the story that Tommy Carmellini can't tell because he's not at that location.

There is a lot of violence in this book, something that doesn't particularly appeal to me. The body count rises slowly but surely through the story, with Tommy personally killing 13 of the "bad guys"! These shootouts and other fights are described in detail, and are exciting at first, but about half way through the book it gets tedious.

The romantic (to use the word very loosely) subplots are very minor. Tommy succeeds (without trying or particularly enjoying it) in bedding three of the female characters. But if Tommy doesn't really care much one way or the other, why should we?

The weirdest scene in the whole book is when Tommy makes love to one of the women in a bugged hotel room, knowing that his best friend is monitoring the bugs! The fact that he doesn't particularly like the lady in question just added to my incredulity!

A general problem with the whole book is that the characters are poorly presented and not very believable. Surprising, considering that Stephen Coonts is otherwise very good at writing books populated with real people.

In particular, Tommy Carmellini doesn't come across as a believable person. To make it worse, he isn't a person that I find all that appealing. He's great at shooting holes in the bad guys and making clever remarks, but I'd prefer a leading "good guy" who is smarter and displays more real human characteristics.

On the plus side, the plot is pretty good. The story is partly based on the real-life defection of Vasili Mitrokhin, the KGB archivist who arrived in Great Britain in 1992 with six suitcases of notes from classified KGB files! Mix this with an American presidential nomination and people in high places with a past that is damaging to their political careers and you have an exciting cocktail.

Still, the good plot can't compensate for the disappointing characters and the repetitive violence, so I'm only giving three stars to "Liars & Thieves".

Rennie Petersen

Tommy Carmellini has a way with words, women & weapons. He is also a cannon on the loose when he finds his boss & his best friend have become targets.
For ardent Admiral Jake Grafton fans, you will be glad that he & Callie, are back to assist in sorting out who's after whom & who ordered the mayhem, even as a presidential convention gets under way in New York City.
Rebeccasreads recommends LIARS & THIEVES as packed with rib-tickling humor, loads of weaponry, plentiful & bloody skullduggery, spasms of hysterical liberalism, frequent sly deceits, with an unabashed undercurrent of honor.

This was the first Stephen Coonts book that I have read and maybe I've just been spoiled by reading other, better authors like Tom Clancy, Dale Brown, and Patrick Robinson, but the plotline of this book is horrendously implausable. The President nominating family to join him on the ticket, a strike team made up of disgruntled FBI employees wiping out a CIA installation with Army personel on-site, a trail of dead bodies among a dozen locations which are never reported to the police, The FBI identifying the protaganist as the culprit without evidence (which is possible, of course, because the White House is controlling the entire investigation. That always happens, right), and the hero of the story only has two kinds of friends...the ones that will be dragged into the mud with him or suffer a nasty interrogation and torture session (if they live) and the ones that will end up stabbing him in the back before he finds out and mercifully sends them away to their evil lair to brood. I can only recommend you read the book for you to appreciate just how doubtful the story is. This book evidences that there is a line between great fiction and incredible fantasy. Perhaps there is an audience for the book, but only if you forgive a lot of impossible events.

While I truly appreciate some of the valid criticisms of my fellow reviewers on this page, I nevertheless think that this book is outstanding. It is a style change for Mr. Coonts, but why should he not be allowed to reach in different directions? And, if it is a style (first person, Spillane-like, characters not totally fleshed-out, much shooting) that doesn't appeal to a particular set of readers, I guess that's ok. I think that Coonts' main Grafton books are superb, and superbly written; this is different, and has its own merits. I think many people will find it just as much a page-turner as I did, and enjoy it for what it is....rather than be upset for what it's not.

Action, intrigue, spies, and some philosophical insights thrown in makes for an absorbing read! The characters become real and the events believable. Thank God there are people like Tommy Carmellini and Jake Grafton (at least I hope there are).

I now have found a new hero, Tommy Carmellini. He's a little different. A burglar with plenty of lock experience along with being a CIA operative. Last but not least he is also a good looking stud all the women melt over. This is a good additive to Jake Grafton (Admiral retired) from other novels. All in all it is a fine story with a lot of twists and turns and wonders of who is who by all envolved make for a fine story. I will real all his books now as this is only the second I have read. I enjoyed both and look forward to reading more.

This is a passable thriller that should hold your attention enough to keep you awake on long drives. It includes scenes of torture, sexual situations, and vulgar language that are not appropriate for younger readers or listeners. Guerin Barry is superb with male voices, but not with female voices. This is not a story with any deeper themes--the protagonist doesn't really grow as a character--he merely survives. People who like realistic political thrillers may also be disappointed. But if you need something for the road, this may do nicely.

This book is a good book, especially if you haven't read a lot of realitic military fiction. This book has a character that is a lot like James Bond, the invincible spy. After a while, this character's unrealistic achievements ruin the book. Many of the things don't make sense if you think about them. One of the things that is most incongrous is that a group of soldiers is able to overrun CIA's specially trained guard troops, but then is consistently defeated by a signle agent.

Things like this happen throughout the book, and all the while people are dying. It seems that one character is able to handle the world, something that everyone should know isn't true. If you want a book with a lot of shooting action, this is for you. If you want a book with real substance, you's be better off looking somewhere else.

Carmellini found more trouble than he usually does when he gets what appears to be a normal "babysitting job" from is CIA boss! In the end it takes his mentor Jake Grafton to sort things out and help Tommy clear his name.

Coonts' excessive macho posturing is unbearable in this misogynist, dreadful cartoon of a novel. Tommy the CIA burglar, the supposed hero in this simplistic, childish scumburger of a book, has no use for "broads" or "ditzes." They do what he wants or he "pops" them without reservation or shame. Most of this book is about him belittling, abusing and controlling helpless passive women, who of course find him dashing and romantic. There's some action movie plot involving the FBI or the CIA and cell phones that don't work, but I lost interest. It's the kind of stuff that Ludlum and Clancy do much better. If you like your women docile and afraid to stand up for themselves, this is the book for you. If you've evolved beyond hitting women because you think it makes you tough, you'll find this dreck as obnoxious as I do.

The book itself is fine but the conversion to Kindle format is really bad. The font must be "Bold Fuzzy misaligned", it's hard to read. Also this is the only Kindle book that I have that greatly impacts the Kindle performance. It takes a full 60 sec. to come out of sleep mode and the pages turn noticeably slower. I don't know who did the conversion to this format but get samples first and don't purchases books like this.

This is probably Stephen Coonts best book to date. It was the first book i read by him and it made me want to read more. I finished it in two days of non-stop reading. I like the the way it's in the first person-it adds something to the story. Liars and thieves has non-stop action. It's the best book i have ever read and I would highly recommend it to anyone.

I ordered the book for my son, Justin Walters, who is in prison and he was sent the CD of the book and has no way of returning it so I am very upset and disappointed. I tried to contact you directly but was only put in circles at your website. Please send him the book and I will use your service over and over again. Please write me back on your decision.

Thank you,

Paula Walters