文章基本信息

标题：CIA background infuses thrilling debut
作者：Reviewed by Linda DuVal
期刊名称：Gazette, The (Colorado Springs)
出版年度：2001
卷号：Mar 4, 2001
出版社：Colorado Springs Gazette

CIA background infuses thrilling debut

Reviewed by Linda DuVal

"The Cutout"

By Francine Mathews. Bantam Books, $23.95

In her debut thriller, veteran Colorado mystery-writer Francine Mathews has concocted a plot that's not only plausible, but riveting.

As the story opens, the first female vice president of the United States is kidnapped during the bombing of a public event in Germany. On videotape, one of the kidnappers looks exactly like Eric, the dead husband of CIA analyst Caroline Carmichael. Eric was believed to have died several years ago in an aircraft explosion caused by terrorists. Now, it appears, he's part of the terrorist group.

Caroline then becomes an essential part of the team assigned to track down the terrorists and rescue the vice president.

She becomes the cutout, which in espionage terms refers to a pawn, a go-between, someone who conceals the contact between two other people.

The trail leads Caroline all over Europe, and as the real plot begins to unfold, she's frantic to avert another world war.

The author brings to the written page her own experiences as an intelligence analyst with the CIA, including an assignment to investigate the explosion of Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland. It's interesting to note that all current and former employees of the CIA must submit anything they write about the agency for scrutiny, and Mathews' novel passed muster. Allegedly, only one word was changed.

Some of the most engrossing scenes are of the leader of the terrorist group and how he treats his victims and his own son. This guy redefines the term ruthless.

Mathews, who has written a handful of Jane Austen literary mysteries as Stephanie Barron, brings her elegant writing style to a new genre, but this story is much more raw than anything Miss Austen could have imagined.

Reportedly, the rights to the novel already have been sold to Warner Bros. for a film, but you'll want to read it before it's ravaged by the moviemakers.