Blown

I got this book because of The Cutout, which was an amazingly well written and fast paced novel. Blown is just as well written--it grabs you from the first page and doesn't let go until the last one. I read it in about three days because I just could not put it down.

After almost single-handedly taking down the international terrorist organization Thirty April (as described in Mathews' 2001 novel, The Cutout), CIA Agent Caroline Carmichael assumes she will have sufficient time to recoup the considerable physical and mental strength expended to achieve that goal. Her assumption is proven wrong only weeks later when a Thirty April sleeper agent suddenly attacks on U.S. soil, slaughtering hundreds of runners participating in the Washington DC Marine Corp marathon with ricin laced water. Marked as a target by the terrorist in his public pronouncements, Caroline has extra motivation to track him down before he can fulfill the rest of his lethal objectives. There's much to admire about Blown--its intense action scenes, deliberate pacing, knowing characterization, and capacity to keep readers guessing are just a few qualities that spring to mind--but its most appealing aspect is by far its powerful and unsettling plot, dealing with the aftermath of the apparent downfall of a major terrorist organization. Unlike most novels of this type, which naively assume the danger is over as soon as the organization's top leadership is eliminated, Blown points out that the danger persists as long as even one even slightly competent person still believes in the group's goals. Proceeding from this premise, Mathews spins a hair-raising thriller guaranteed to spur readers' thinking about just how vulnerable they really are.

No one suspects anything is amiss at a runner's aid station at Mile 20 of the Marine Corps Marathon in Washington, D.C. But after the race, hundreds of runners become violently ill, and a lone terrorist steps forward and claims responsibility for handing out deadly ricin-laced water at the aid station. The unknown terrorist claims to be a member of the 30 April terrorist group, which the CIA thought was present only in Europe and had been eliminated just weeks before. The story moves along with rapid-fire speed, as the CIA tries to find the terrorist. Carolyn Carmichael is the CIA protagonist of the story. Carrie was the CIA agent who assassinated the leader of the 30 April organization, but now she has decided to resign her position with the agency. But when Carrie founds out that her husband, also a CIA agent who was presumed killed in a helicopter crash three years previously, is actually alive and has infiltrated the 30 April organization in Europe, she decides she must try to save him. The plot twists wildly in this thriller, and the reader quickly figures out that Carolyn doesn't know who she can trust. The terrorist acts in the United States were plotted realistically, and I really enjoyed the story. "Blown" is the second novel from Francine Mathews and features the same cast of characters that appeared in her first novel. I haven't read that one yet, but I felt that Mathews did a great job of filling in the background information required from the first novel. I plan to go back and read that one too. I highly recommend this fast-moving, well plotted espionage thriller.

I read Francine Mathews' two novels, "The Cutout" and "Blown," back-to-back, and together they make for some intensely exciting reading. However, while "The Cutout" stands on its own as a novel, "Blown" is more a sequel, a Part II, dependent on the prior book for a thorough understanding of the content. Both books are chilling thrillers concerning the Neo-Nazi terrorist organization "30 April." "Blown" continues the saga of tough, talented Caroline Carmichael, CIA intelligence analyst turned operative. Caroline has worked for the last two years for the Counterterrorism Center, (CTC), focusing almost obsessively, on "30 April" a disciplined group of Eastern European terrorists whose goal is to cleanse Europe of all non-Aryans. This group was responsible for the deadly explosion which killed everyone onboard MedAir Flight 901, including her husband, former deputy director of the CTC, Eric Carmichael. The 30 April Organization's leader, Croatian Mlan Krucevic, was a trained geneticist who used biological agents in human experiments. Just a few days before this novel begins, he and his group kidnapped US Vice President Sophie Payne, while she was on an official visit to Berlin. Krucevic and most of his cohorts were killed during the subsequent search and rescue mission. Unfortunately, so was the American vice president. While reviewing videotape footage of the kidnapping, a select few CTC employees, including Caroline, discover that Eric Carmichael is still alive. His face is visible in the terrorist helicopter which makes-off with Ms. Payne. Scottie Sorensen Chief of CTC and Eric's boss, had secretly recruited him to infiltrate 30 April. Now, after the vice president's unexpected murder, Eric has become a liability to Sorenson, and must be eliminated. Sorenson "blows" Carmichael's cover. As the novel opens, Daniel Becker, an American citizen and member of a US based 30 April cell, spikes drinking water with deadly poison. He then hands out cups of the doctored water to runners participating in a marathon, with fatal results. Becker disappears and reemerges several hours later to kill the Director of Central Intelligence. Caroline is next on his list. A series of emails are sent to the Washington Post newsroom, warning that retribution is at hand for the death of Krucevic. Invoking the name of Tim McVeigh, as well as Ruby Ridge and Waco, the text says, "The End Times are coming. Prepare." Caroline Carmichael, aware of Sorenson's betrayal, understands it is almost impossible to beat the Chief at his game. Without the power or the proof to expose him, she is about to resign from the CIA when she learns of the attack, and the epidemic number of deaths following the marathon. As the major expert on the terrorist organization, she is drawn into the new investigation. Then she hears her husband has been arrested in Germany as a terrorist operative. Not trusting anyone and suspecting everyone, Caroline is helpless as far as assisting Eric to escape

Francine Mathews is a former CIA analyst who began her writing career authoring a number of impressive mystery novels. A few years ago she began writing about the world she knew best --- the world of espionage. THE CUTOUT was Mathews's first work of espionage fiction, an intriguing work of duplicity, mayhem, and death. Some four years later, Mathews has returned to the characters and the world of THE CUTOUT with a riveting sequel titled BLOWN. BLOWN reintroduces Caroline Carmichael, the troubled CIA field agent who first appeared in THE CUTOUT. After a brilliantly frightening introduction, we find Carmichael cleaning out her desk, having tendered her resignation due to the duplicity of Scottie Sorensen, the CIA's Chief of Counterterrorism and Carmichael's boss. Carmichael is pressed back into duty when a domestic terrorist named Daniel Becker commits an act of mass murder and silently slips away, only to strike again several hours later by assassinating a high-ranking government official. Carmichael's expertise is required because it appears that Becker is a member of a domestic component of 30 April, the international terrorist group whose leader was murdered by Carmichael in THE CUTOUT. Becker, who seems to be waging a one-man war on the United States government, is seemingly untouchable and unstoppable as he moves across the eastern United States cutting a swath of violence and death in his wake. Meanwhile, Eric Carmichael, Caroline's husband, is hiding in Berlin with every hand raised against him. Believed by everyone --- including Caroline --- to have died three years previously, Eric in fact has been functioning at the behest of Sorensen as a double agent against 30 April. When his mission goes horribly, irrevocably wrong, Eric finds himself pursued by both sides in the war on terror. When captured, he becomes a liability to Sorensen --- one that must be eliminated right away. BLOWN picks up almost immediately from where THE CUTOUT left off. While it is not entirely necessary to read THE CUTOUT before picking up BLOWN, your enjoyment of the latter will be increased dramatically by doing so. Mathews does not scrimp on the tension, the excitement, or the surprises. From the opening pages, where a domestic terrorist executes a fiendishly brilliant attack upon a highly publicized gathering, to the conclusion, which contains surprise after surprise (at least one of which you'll never see coming), Mathews creates the sense that the reader should be holding BLOWN in one hand and a ticking stopwatch in the other. Mathews also introduces a number of new and interesting supporting characters. Among them is an off-kilter genius named Raphael, who literally hijacks the book. He is so intriguing, however, that you won't care. Full of excitement, emotion and action, BLOWN is a definite page-turner. --- Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub