The Skorpion Directive

I am not familiar with this author but like international spy novels. The book takes a while to get into but once it starts 'rolling' hang on as it is a fast and wild ride. Well paced, kind of plausible and wraps up in the end with a surprise.

Traveling to Vienna to meet with a former Mossad agent, Micah Dalton finds himself targeted by a complex plot designed to shatter America's strategic alliances, a conspiracy that pits him against a secret U.S. agency and a cadre of trained KGB assassins. This is the fourth in a series featuring Micah Dalton, a CIA officer, also known as a cleaner and fixer in the clandestine world. This author and his protagonist has really grown on me. I love all his thrillers, and to me they are all comparable to Ludlum when he was in his hey days. If you love international spy thrillers you can't go wrong with David Stone.

CIA "cleaner" Micah Dalton is in Vienna meeting with former-Mossad field operative Issadore Galan when he feels something is not right. Used to cleaning up the mess of failed operations, he fears he will need a cleaner too, as he quickly realizes that he is under surveillance by unknown assumed to be hostile enemies. Not one to sit back and wait, Micah catches one of them, Veronika Miklas. After sex, he flees with her accompanying him following a failed assault on him. Someone wants Micah dead, but he is unsure why; especially since his CIA contacts and handlers are part of the death squad pursuers. He turns to his alcoholic psychopathic friend Ray Fyke to insure he has his back covered. As the trio travels to the Balkans, the former KGB assassins, an American top secret agency, other espionage groups, and Smoke the Serbian killer follow with death to the threesome as their mantra. The latest Cleaner espionage thriller (see The Venetian Judgment, The Echelon Vendetta and The Orpheus Deception) is a great conspiratorial story line filed with action, action and more action. The cast is especially powerful including the enigmatic killing machine Smoke while the locales enhance the exciting plot. Genre fans will enjoy The Skorpian Directive as someone high up has decided to clean the cleaner. Harriet Klausner