{"id":18799,"date":"2023-10-10T20:02:41","date_gmt":"2023-10-11T00:02:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/?p=18799"},"modified":"2023-10-10T20:02:41","modified_gmt":"2023-10-11T00:02:41","slug":"ice-in-the-blood-by-kevin-wignall","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/?p=18799","title":{"rendered":"‘Ice in the Blood,’ by Kevin Wignall"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"\/<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\n

She sighed and said, \u201cHe\u2019s quite sweet, actually, beneath all the company bluff and bluster. I kept thinking of Graham Greene the whole time I was with him.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jay didn\u2019t get the reference.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI don\u2019t follow.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI mean, I think he\u2019ll end up dead, sooner than later.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

I think of Graham Greene myself,<\/strong> actually, whenever I read a Kevin Wignall novel. The difference is that I find Greene wholly opaque to my comprehension, while I quite enjoy Wignall. On the other hand, Greene has a moral center (though I may differ with his judgments), while I\u2019m never sure what Wignall wants me to think about his characters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jay Lewis, hero of Ice in the Blood<\/a><\/em>, is a former CIA agent, now working freelance private security. Currently he\u2019s living on the French Riviera, heading up security for Vitali Petrov, a Belorussian general who\u2019s planning a coup in his home country. He has the support of the US and Britain. However, Jay is in fact a double agent, working for an undisclosed employer to thwart the coup.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jay\u2019s seen and done most everything, but he\u2019s not prepared for the sudden appearance of a former girlfriend who has brought along a ten-year-old boy whom she says is Jay\u2019s son (Jay never knew he existed). She\u2019s a peaceful person, a career relief worker. She doesn\u2019t know how to handle a boy like this Owen, who is obviously Jay\u2019s son to anyone who looks at them both, and possesses what seems like an innate talent for intrigue and violence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The woman disappears before Jay can figure out a way to put her off, leaving Owen in his care. Well, he\u2019ll have to find someone to look after him, but that will take a few days to arrange. In the meantime, he lets the boy tag along with him. Owen clearly hungers for a male role model, and Jay quickly warms to him, even finding him useful as camouflage and as a source of information. Especially when Owen makes friends with Petrov\u2019s son. A plan begins to gel in Jay\u2019s mind \u2013 but it will involve putting Owen at some degree of risk.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But what if Owen wants <\/em>to be just like his dad?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a story like this, one expects the hero to learn heartwarming lessons about love and responsibility as parenthood changes him inwardly. And that does happen to some extent. But it\u2019s a lot more complex than that, and in the end I wasn\u2019t sure what to make of the story\u2019s resolution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But it was a good story, well-told, vivid, and exciting. I enjoyed it, but I\u2019m not sure it didn\u2019t corrupt me a little.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

She sighed and said, \u201cHe\u2019s quite sweet, actually, beneath all the company bluff and bluster. I kept thinking of Graham Greene the whole time I was with him.\u201d Jay didn\u2019t get the reference. \u201cI don\u2019t follow.\u201d \u201cI mean, I think he\u2019ll end up dead, sooner than later.\u201d I think of Graham Greene myself, actually, whenever … Continue reading ‘Ice in the Blood,’ by Kevin Wignall<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[7,15],"tags":[4911,1573],"class_list":["post-18799","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fiction","category-reviews","tag-ice-in-the-blood","tag-kevin-wignall"],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18799","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18799"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18799\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18800,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18799\/revisions\/18800"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18799"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18799"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18799"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}