Tag Archives: Jeffrey S. Stephens

Fiction, Reviews

‘Enemies Among Us,’ by Jeffrey S. Stephens

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A while back I read a novel by Jeffrey S. Stephens which I found entertaining and well-written. Since then I’ve read two more of Stephens’ books to see how they’d be. Enemies Among Us is part of a series starring a continuing hero named Nick Reagan.

Nick Reagan is a high-level CIA operative. One of his old enemies is an Islamist terrorist mastermind called the Handler. In Enemies Among Us, Reagan gets a chance to capture the Handler, but is ordered by his superiors to stand down. Reagan ignores those orders and manages to catch him anyway, then delivers him up in a neat package. But the Handler himself has warned him that there are traitors in the US government, and they’ll both kill him and Reagan to keep their secrets covered. For the rest of the book, Reagan fights and strategizes to stay alive, to protect his friends, and to save the country.

Was Enemies Among Us any good? I didn’t think so.

I found the prose ponderous, and the story moved (for me) very slowly. I often complain about thrillers that never give you a chance to breathe, where the protagonist shrugs off more physical damage than real humans could survive. But in this story, I felt that the action scenes were separated by endless stretches of clumsy writing. The author told us too much, and not very artfully. (He also has a tendency to misplace modifiers.)

I’m sorry to say all that, because Enemies Among Us is very explicitly conservative and pro-American. I appreciated the intention, but I was bored.

Fiction, Reviews

‘Illusions of Trust,’ by Jeffrey S. Stephens

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I read a book by Jeffrey S. Stephens and was impressed enough go on to try Illusions of Trust, a book that reads like part of a series, but doesn’t seem to be, as far as I can tell from Stephens’s author page.

There seem to be echoes of both Perry Mason and Nero Wolfe at work here, though the characters are entirely original as they operate. Russell Palmer is a young New York attorney who has lucked into a dream situation. Thanks to an anonymous patron, he’s able to take only the cases he wants, cases where a real injustice needs to be set right. He has a partner named Robbie Wyghte, a smart, retired cop.

When Christina Franco, a wealthy and beautiful socialite, comes into his office insisting he represent her in divorcing her husband, he sees no reason why he should. She has the resources to hire the best divorce lawyers in the business. But she says she needs him because her husband has threatened her life. When she mentions the name of a particular criminal Palmer has tangled with before, a man he hates and wants to bring down, he’s motivated to take her case.

Soon after, a prominent corporate lawyer who has worked with Christina’s senator father commits apparent suicide. Threats begin coming in. Palmer himself is physically attacked. And Christina’s mother asks him to prove that the late lawyer, who had been her friend, did not kill himself.

The whole thing resolved itself in a way that pleased me, with minimal fights and fireworks. I liked the ending. The rest of the book I found just a little low-key. Palmer seemed a fairly dull sort of hero – we’re told he has OCD, but his symptoms are minimal and don’t interfere with him much.

Nevertheless, it was a good story. Good prose, good dialogue, good characters. Worth reading. Some homosexuals show up early on, and the author takes pains to show his acceptance of them, but it’s not a big part of the story.

Fiction, Reviews

‘Fool’s Errand,’ by Jeffrey S. Stevens

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Writing this review, I find myself in the odd position of not remembering what the narrator/hero’s name is. The Amazon synopsis doesn’t say either. Maybe Jeffrey S. Stephens, author of Fools Errand, never tells us that – or maybe I just missed it. But if Stephens held it back, that’s an interesting authorial tactic.

The narrator’s last name, though, is Rinaldi. He comes from a “colorful” New York Italian family. His father and uncles were involved in organized crime – not as kingpins but as lower functionaries. His father, a mercurial, charismatic alcoholic, ran numbers. The story is set in the 1970s, after his father has been dead several years. One day, his mother informs him she has a box of his father’s papers that was meant for him. When he goes through the material, he finds a letter addressed to himself, written not long before his father’s death. The letter tells of something the old man had bragged about many times, when drunk. It speaks – vaguely – about some “Money” that he, his friend Benny, and a Frenchman stole while he was in the army during the war, working on repatriating stolen artworks.

Our hero contacts Benny, who’s living in Las Vegas. Benny gently suggests he leave the whole matter alone, but (knowing he won’t do that) he gives him the name of the Frenchman.

Soon he’s on a plane to Monte Carlo, accompanied by Donna, a young woman he met and struck sparks with on the plane back from Vegas. Once there (where he is shadowed by employees of his mobster cousin Frank, who thinks he has a claim on this “treasure” whose nature he has no clue about) he meets his father’s old friend, and begins to put together the very strange story of his father’s wartime adventures.

Fool’s Errand was, simply put, a really good story. Fascinating. Well-written. Insightful. Suspenseful, but not a thriller. A character study and a love story.

I liked it a whole lot. Jeffrey S. Stephens is an extremely good (and smart) writer. Recommended, with cautions for mature content.