The Middleman
Olen Steinhauer
Minotaur Books, August 2018
ISBN 978-0-2500-3617-9
Hardcover
A thriller wrapped in a mystery which cannot make up its mind where it is going, or even coming from. At the heart of the plot, Special Agent Rachel Proulx of the FBI is studying and preparing a report on terrorist groups. Consequently, she spearheads the FBI’s efforts to monitor a group whose leader does not favor active terrorism, but cerebral efforts to change society.
The FBI plants an undercover agent in the group and he is forced to act as a sniper on July 4, 2017, shooting a Congresswoman spearheading an investigation into a couple of financial institutions, Three other members of Congress are killed, although the Congresswoman is only shot in the neck and survives. One of the other three is also a leader in the investigation of the financial companies. So much for peaceful demonstrations, and the group is now classified as a terrorist organization.
What remains is for Rachel and the undercover agent to team up and try to find out what really took place along the way and discover the answers to unexplained questions and events, making these attempts while outcasts from their own FBI. While the novel is constructed to move along and keep the reader interested, it is buried in obscurity and sometimes difficult to follow. For the most part, the story meanders back and forth, past to present, adding little to forward movement. It really is a tale of conspiracies compounded by double-crosses, but not a bad read, and is recommended.
Reviewed by Ted Feit, September 2018.
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