The Venetian Judgment by David Stone

From the Publisher

Deception in the CIA, historical intrigue, and blood in the streets-Micah Dalton returns in the stunning new novel by the New York Times-bestselling author.

W inter in Venice and a killing frost has cut deep into CIA cleaner Micah Dalton's heart as he heads out into the night to erase the last members of the Serbian gang who shot his lover, a hand-to-hand vendetta Dalton does not intend to survive. And he might not have, if a mysterious jade box containing a stainless steel glasscutter had not arrived at his villa. The glasscutter has powerful meaning for only a select few people high up inside the American intelligence establishment.

The box, and the dangerous message it contains, triggers a global search for a possible mole within the upper echelons of the CIA itself, a pursuit that takes Dalton from Venice to Santorini to Istanbul, where he collides with a shadowy group of spies determined to prevent the discovery of a plot that could paralyze America's most critical intelligence operations around the world.

Through airborne firefights above the Sea of Marmora, a harrowing sea chase up the Straits of the Bosphorus, and then halfway across the globe to a violent confrontation in the mangrove swamps of Florida's Emerald Coast, Dalton and his associate-the half-American, half-English aristocrat Mandy Pownall-risk their lives and possibly their sanity in a desperate hunt for the architects of a cunningly deceptive espionage offensive mounted by one of America's most subtle and ancient enemies.

Intelligent, sophisticated, and filled with pulsing suspense, The Venetian Judgment is a brilliant thriller from a master craftsman.

Publishers Weekly

At the start of bestseller Stone's formulaic third thriller to feature CIA "cleaner" Micah Dalton (after The Orpheus Deception), Dalton takes revenge late one night outside Venice's Piazza San Marco on one of the Serbian thugs responsible for the death of his lover, Cora Vasari. Dalton's actions result in his becoming involved in the search for a high-level traitor in the CIA's ranks, who's believed to be behind the brutal murder of elderly Mildred Durant, an unofficial adviser to an NSA decryption team known as the Glass Cutters, in her London home. Durant worked on the Venona Project, the interception of Soviet cable traffic, during the cold war. It appears Stalin "had a source close to Roosevelt who was never exposed." While no one will mistake Stone for John le Carré, series fans are sure to root for the unstoppable Dalton, compared at one point to "the newly risen Christ, only blond and not quite so loving, with a bullet scar on one cheek and no intention at all of turning the other." (Apr.)

Jonathan Pearce - Library Journal

CIA "cleaner" Micah Dalton is in bad standing with the Company but manages to acquire yet another wound and slaughter five bad guys in the first few pages of this suspenseful sequel to the author's two previous breath-stoppers (The Echelon Vendetta and The Orpheus Deception). The novel's violence is juicily graphic, and Stone's main evildoer is nearly satanic. Stone's work is not smoothly literary, instead moving in leaps from one subplot, one location, and one character set to another. Even so, his descriptions of the many different settings are nicely detailed; there are numerous characters, but not an excessive amount because of Stone's proficiency at rendering each memorable. His technique lends authenticity to the main story line, part revenge tale, part search for a possible mole in one of America's intelligence agencies. In the end, readers may be left with as many questions as answers. Recommended for all public libraries.

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