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Madison McGuire #4
The Spy in Question
From the back cover:
The fourth Madison McGuire thriller is here!
Topical as today's headlines, filled with all the fast-paced action and high-octane suspense you have come to expect from Lambda Award-nominee Amanda Kyle Williams.
Madison is thoroughly enjoying an accidental liaison with a famous female rock star when she is summoned to her most challenging assignment:
Locate and offer American help to a small resistance band hidden in the Peruvian jungle - the alternative to the murderous Shining Path guerrilla movement that controls the area from which half of the world's cocaine originates.
The resistance fighters are disciplined and courageous, their main cog Paulina Holgodo, a jungle-savvy Latina. Neither the resistance nor Madison know that a separate clandestine American military operation is also at work in Peru - to place a major drug victory in the lap of the re-election campaign of the US President.
Madison also does not know that the head of the Colombian Cartel has his own plans for her and for the American military expedition.
Nor does Madison realize that she and her operation will be forsaken in a heartbeat if word leaks out that the U.S. is involved in a secret mission.
But everyone has underestimated Madison and the resistance - their toughness and heart, and Madison's own resourcefulness . . .
The fourth Madison McGuire thriller is here!
Topical as today's headlines, filled with all the fast-paced action and high-octane suspense you have come to expect from Lambda Award-nominee Amanda Kyle Williams.
Madison is thoroughly enjoying an accidental liaison with a famous female rock star when she is summoned to her most challenging assignment:
Locate and offer American help to a small resistance band hidden in the Peruvian jungle - the alternative to the murderous Shining Path guerrilla movement that controls the area from which half of the world's cocaine originates.
The resistance fighters are disciplined and courageous, their main cog Paulina Holgodo, a jungle-savvy Latina. Neither the resistance nor Madison know that a separate clandestine American military operation is also at work in Peru - to place a major drug victory in the lap of the re-election campaign of the US President.
Madison also does not know that the head of the Colombian Cartel has his own plans for her and for the American military expedition.
Nor does Madison realize that she and her operation will be forsaken in a heartbeat if word leaks out that the U.S. is involved in a secret mission.
But everyone has underestimated Madison and the resistance - their toughness and heart, and Madison's own resourcefulness . . .
234 pages, Paperback
First published June 1, 1993
64 people want to read
About the author
Amanda Kyle Williams
15 books358 followersAmanda Kyle Williams was an American crime writer best known for her Keye Street series that are psychologically complex thrillers. In 2013 The Stranger You Seek was shortlisted for the Private Eye Writers of America's Shamus Award. She also wrote the Madison McGuire series.
Williams spent her childhood between Colorado and Georgia. She began her writing career as a freelance writer for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. When she decided to experiment with writing crime fiction, she studied criminology to establish background knowledge, and worked with a private investigator firm in Atlanta.
Williams was diagnosed with endometrial cancer in February 2014. She died on August 31, 2018, in Decatur, Georgia.
Williams spent her childhood between Colorado and Georgia. She began her writing career as a freelance writer for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. When she decided to experiment with writing crime fiction, she studied criminology to establish background knowledge, and worked with a private investigator firm in Atlanta.
Williams was diagnosed with endometrial cancer in February 2014. She died on August 31, 2018, in Decatur, Georgia.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
November 25, 2016
And we, as in me, have once again reached the end of a series. It has been 13+ years since the last book appeared, and a completely different series has popped up and reached three books since then, so a fifth book is unlikely and/or unexpected to appear.
This specific book finds Madison McGuire focused on and in Peru.
The President is up for reelection and he figures it might help his chances if he ‘did something’ about drugs. He looks at some plans then sets two separate ones in motion. Then turns things over to his Chief of Staff with the idea that he’d have plausible deniability (you know, like with Oliver North and that Iran-Contra thingie).
One mission involves a group of military personal inserted into the jungles of Peru. Their mission: destroy coco processing locations, record plane tail numbers, and in general cause havoc to Shining Path guerilla force which claims the coco fields as their own (and those fields, apparently, are where 70% of the coco comes from (I got confused somewhere along the way as to whether or not this was 70% of Columbia’s drug cartels coco production or 70% of the world’s coco production)). Note about the book description: It is misleading, specifically the part that reads “The resistance fighters are disciplined and courageous, their main cog Paulina Holgodo, a jungle-savvy Latina” (first off – that implies that Holgodo is a member of the resistance (and the prior paragraph lets the reader know that ‘the resistance’ is not referring to the US military force inserted into the jungle – what with the line ‘American help to a small resistance band hidden in the Peruvian jungle’), Holgodo is a Sergeant with the US military, not a resistance fighter; her band of military personal are not, in fact, in the jungle helping a small resistance band – they themselves are the small group running around the jungle shooting things. Though there is a resistance group, it isn’t connected to the military personal, and as far as I know, they are not even specifically connected to the jungle).
Mission two involves Madison McGuire sent into Peru to make contact with a specific fella who was a farmer, but is now the head of a brand new resistance group – the National Liberation Front (I believe that was the name used). The Shining Path had wandered in and destroyed a community –killing a few of the members there, killing cows, taking some animals, and then leaving. One of the people killed was that fella’s sister. Naturally he’s pissed. The government is corrupt and powerless in the face of the Shining Path, and the Shining Path, despite having some vague seed of ‘fighting for the people’, is corrupt and hooked up with the drug cartels. And so, that fella (I really should have used his name at some point, I believe it’s something like Enrique Navarro), raises the local people to fight back – or at least defend themselves and their communities against the Shining Path.
And, as is something of a common theme with this series, the government, as in the US government, is kind of dickish and corrupt – out for its own interests. I’ve mentioned it before – that specific thread reminds me a lot of how John Le Carre books go – what with the sad depressed operatives working for depressing incompetent and/or corrupt government forces.
This is a damn good series, and readable by any and everyone. It is unfortunate that some would notice that Madison McGuire was a lesbian and flee in the opposite direction, crying out in horror. But, their horrific homophobia is both their loss and mine (since the one group kept themselves from reading four good books; and another (as in me) find themselves having only four books to read (since the author saw the writing on the wall (I’ve been told), and realized that lesbian fiction books just don’t sell enough copies)).
For those looking for romance – look elsewhere; for those looking for graphic depictions of a sexual nature – there is some sex, though not very explicit and not much of it. For those looking for a fun exciting action packed thrilling adventure . . . they might find it here depending on what ‘they’ mean by those words. This is a good spy thriller.
November 25 2016
This specific book finds Madison McGuire focused on and in Peru.
The President is up for reelection and he figures it might help his chances if he ‘did something’ about drugs. He looks at some plans then sets two separate ones in motion. Then turns things over to his Chief of Staff with the idea that he’d have plausible deniability (you know, like with Oliver North and that Iran-Contra thingie).
One mission involves a group of military personal inserted into the jungles of Peru. Their mission: destroy coco processing locations, record plane tail numbers, and in general cause havoc to Shining Path guerilla force which claims the coco fields as their own (and those fields, apparently, are where 70% of the coco comes from (I got confused somewhere along the way as to whether or not this was 70% of Columbia’s drug cartels coco production or 70% of the world’s coco production)). Note about the book description: It is misleading, specifically the part that reads “The resistance fighters are disciplined and courageous, their main cog Paulina Holgodo, a jungle-savvy Latina” (first off – that implies that Holgodo is a member of the resistance (and the prior paragraph lets the reader know that ‘the resistance’ is not referring to the US military force inserted into the jungle – what with the line ‘American help to a small resistance band hidden in the Peruvian jungle’), Holgodo is a Sergeant with the US military, not a resistance fighter; her band of military personal are not, in fact, in the jungle helping a small resistance band – they themselves are the small group running around the jungle shooting things. Though there is a resistance group, it isn’t connected to the military personal, and as far as I know, they are not even specifically connected to the jungle).
Mission two involves Madison McGuire sent into Peru to make contact with a specific fella who was a farmer, but is now the head of a brand new resistance group – the National Liberation Front (I believe that was the name used). The Shining Path had wandered in and destroyed a community –killing a few of the members there, killing cows, taking some animals, and then leaving. One of the people killed was that fella’s sister. Naturally he’s pissed. The government is corrupt and powerless in the face of the Shining Path, and the Shining Path, despite having some vague seed of ‘fighting for the people’, is corrupt and hooked up with the drug cartels. And so, that fella (I really should have used his name at some point, I believe it’s something like Enrique Navarro), raises the local people to fight back – or at least defend themselves and their communities against the Shining Path.
And, as is something of a common theme with this series, the government, as in the US government, is kind of dickish and corrupt – out for its own interests. I’ve mentioned it before – that specific thread reminds me a lot of how John Le Carre books go – what with the sad depressed operatives working for depressing incompetent and/or corrupt government forces.
This is a damn good series, and readable by any and everyone. It is unfortunate that some would notice that Madison McGuire was a lesbian and flee in the opposite direction, crying out in horror. But, their horrific homophobia is both their loss and mine (since the one group kept themselves from reading four good books; and another (as in me) find themselves having only four books to read (since the author saw the writing on the wall (I’ve been told), and realized that lesbian fiction books just don’t sell enough copies)).
For those looking for romance – look elsewhere; for those looking for graphic depictions of a sexual nature – there is some sex, though not very explicit and not much of it. For those looking for a fun exciting action packed thrilling adventure . . . they might find it here depending on what ‘they’ mean by those words. This is a good spy thriller.
November 25 2016
May 9, 2016
Fourth (and currently last) book in the Madison McGuire series. This book seemed to be much more about action and less about McGuire than the others in the series but was still very enjoyable. Peru is having a lot of social unrest due to an oppressive group involved in cocaine production. A new rebellious leader is rising and McGuire goes to make contact and offer support. Meanwhile a group of US soldiers is secretly sent to throw a wrench in the cocaine production.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews