Brad Thor’s latest thriller Foreign Agent is the fifteenth in his Scot Harvath series, and finds former Navy SEAL Harvath fighting both ISIS and evil Russians bent on luring the U.S. into another war in the Middle East. As an espionage snob, I was fully prepared to write a nasty review, lamenting the formulaic plotline and unrealistic action. While the book is indeed both formulaic and unrealistic, it was nonetheless an enjoyable read.
Foreign Agent opens with an ISIS attack on a covert CIA safe house in Iraq. Subsequent ISIS terrorist attacks against the Secretary of Defense and White House make clear that ISIS has a secret weapon, who is helping them hit the U.S. where it hurts.
Enter Scot Horvath.
As Thor’s Jack Bauer-like hero, Harvath checks all the boxes. The ex-Navy SEAL is a covert counterterrorism agent who works directly for the President. As a private contractor with no official ties, he provides the President the ability to skirt laws and avoid accountability for his actions. He has a license to kill from the President after having saved the President’s daughter in a previous book. He also has girlfriend issues.
Foreign Agent’s plot is well-worn and implausible, and the style is consistent with most summer thrillers, with lots of action and plenty of twists and turns. Thor does a good job of weaving topical issues from the headlines into the story, and Horvath finds himself chasing a bloodthirsty villain in Syria, Jordan and Berlin, among other places. The villain in this case is a Russian, who was the victim of Islamic terrorism as a child. He lives for revenge, learns everything about Islam and jihadi culture, and eventually infiltrates their ranks.
Rather than just look for means to damage ISIS, however, he is looking for a much larger score. As such, he helps his ISIS colleagues choreograph spectacular attacks against the U.S., all in an effort to prompt the U.S. to declare war against ISIS. Although it doesn’t really make sense, Thor’s writing is engaging enough and the reader is interested in following Harvath to the end, as he battles Russian mafia figures, corrupt Syrian border guards, and incompetent U.S. bureaucrats.
It seems to me that there are two distinct branches of literature that deal with espionage and the spy game. One is the action-packed thriller filled with murder, deceit, and lots of twists and turns. The other are novels that use espionage to explore larger themes and focuses on the psychic damage resulting from a life in the shadows.
Thor’s work is consistent with many of the best known authors of the first type, such as Vince Flynn, Stella Rimington, Daniel Silva, Ken Follett, Robert Ludlum, and Frederick Forsyth. The best authors of the second genre, which generally better captures real spy work, are John LeCarre, Charles McCarry, Alan Furst, Jason Matthews, Len Deighton, and Joseph Kanon.
As a devotee of the second type, I wanted to dislike “Foreign Agent.” Since Thor claims to have inside access, I was on the lookout for unrealistic details. Not surprisingly, I found plenty. As with many “espionage” books and movies, Thor’s characters conveniently find accomplices exactly when they need them, are never slowed down by normal day-to-day problems, and always seem to avoid getting hurt as everyone around them falls.
A favorite example was when the hero is saved from imminent danger when he runs into an old flame who works for SVR—but holds a grudge against her government—while he is breaking into a heavily guarded villa to capture a Russian mafia villain. She immediately betrays her paymasters in order to help Horvath.
However, Thor writes with an engaging, fast-paced style and sets his plot into a realistic backdrop informed by today’s headlines. It was my first Thor book, and I plan to read others.
In sum, Foreign Agent is a pretty good, adrenaline-packed summer read.
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