During the early 2020s, Warren Linder, approaching middle age, is an intelligent, honest, but narrow-minded spy working for the Department of State Security (“DSS”). He recently joined the DSS following the end of America’s Second Civil War. The war had drained America’s military and economy, and a series of other ill-fated skirmishes—notably with the Chinese in Manchuria—had damaged America’s military reach. In an effort to save resources, Linder’s previous employer, the CIA, was folded into the DSS out as American military and intelligence assets came home. However, the DSS required agents to wipe up pockets of American insurgents who had escaped to overseas. Linder’s CIA skills and experience could be used in that effort. Linder, not wanting to lose his pension and his pay grade, was glad to find a spot the DSS. While clearly not a fan of the ruling Unionists and the newly appointed President for Life of the United States, politics was not his focus.
In a juxtaposition of today’s world, by the early 2020s, the US was an unstable nation still recovering from Civil War, while Beirut was a politically safe and stable paradise for US insurgents. Linder was called to Beirut by the DSS, His mission: to track down a wealthy insurgent and secure his assets. While in Beirut, Linder was double -crossed by his DSS colleagues. Unlike Linder, who was basically honest and apparently naïve, his colleagues used their position of power to plunder wealth and steal from the overseas insurgents and were intent on getting their hands on this insurgents’ treasures. Linder, unwilling to join in their cabal of corruption, suddenly found he was an enemy of the United States. rather than an agent of the DSS. He landed in an American gulag, a “re-education camp” in the desolate Yukon.
As a result of the shock and the challenges for survival during the harsh winter of the Yukon labor camp, Linder’s entire persona is refined. We watch him rapidly evolve from the narrow-minded bureaucrat to an engaged, compassionate, and sensitive human being. Linder survives as one man against the resources of the United States police state through his cunning and evolving sensitivity.
Warren Linder comes into contact with a number of characters. These include evil representatives of the President for Life’s Unionist regime; the agents who double crossed him, his jailers, and the powerful apparatus of the United States government. The good guys are the insurgents still fighting the Civil War—especially those who robbed Cleveland’s major banks during the Second Civil War, using the cash to finance an insurgency from overseas. Fleming drives us to feel empathy for those insurgents and enmity towards the ruling government. Through his travels in Lebanon, Utah, the Yukon, Canada, and Cleveland Ohio, we experience his energy, the fear, the dog tiredness and exhaustion, and his rare elation. We learn that Linder is a good dancer, and can do a very mean rhumba.
This book is filled with action, politics, beautiful geographies, and stark landscapes.. But there is almost no romance. Linder seems to have had his ability to engage with women stunted by an unrequired teenage crush. Fleming places this woman in Linder’s path, and there are a few moments of passion. But that passion later flames out.
Fleming has written a very enjoyable and creative yarn. His plot is plausible. Set less than ten years in the future, one can imagine the path that might push our nation into a dangerous and costly Civil War. Fleming also draws us into the beauty of Beirut and its environs, and we can viscerally feel the cold dark blowing winter snow of the Yukon and Canada during a frigid winter. In addition, Fleming creates a cast of characters who act as Linder’s agents of survival, without whom Linder would have never survived his continuing challenges. As the book ends, we wonder what will happen next to Linder, his family, and to the United States of America. I hope Fleming will tell us more.