Saul Herzog

Sofia Ivanova and Tatyana Aleksandrova, the doctor and the assassin, respectively, risk everything to get word to an American for help. Help before Russia unleashes a biological super-weapon. An American named Lance Spector. Little did the women realize he was no longer in that world – the clandestine world of the CIA. Lance only has one goal in mind to save the daughter of the man that saved him.

Saul Herzog is a pen name of an undisclosed author of thrillers. I was captivated by the characters. As the setting fluctuated between Montana, Russia, and Washington, D.C., the intrigue and suspense elevated interest. The author tells a story defining countries as either a fox or a hedgehog. It is not a children’s story about these animals but points to the differences in the ways of men’s thinking and which one clings to the promise of peace.

The last line leaves the reader dangling in wonder, gravitating toward Book 2.… (meer)

One doesn't expect literature when ordering kindle unlimited novels, so it wasn't a disappointment when Saul Herzog's The Asset proved not to be of the quality of Graham Greene. It was, though, readable, and amusingly campy, although I doubt that Herzog planned that.
Lance Spector is the asset, a "special breed" of CIA assassin. Laurel Everlane is his handler and Roth is the head of the CIA who recruited them. Herzog doesn't define them well and their dialogs are clunky. His Russian characters, among them Sofia Ivanovna and Tatyana Aleksandrova, are more believable and more interesting and their dialog is at least acceptable.
The Russians have reached into the Siberian permafrost and isolated an ancient virus strain "more lethal than anything the labs could ever come up with." The virus is in the possession of the Dead Hand, a GRU directorate directly linked to the Russian President. It is the mission of the CIA to destroy the virus before it is released. The mission is hampered by a mole in the agency and Spector is the only asset who has not yet been killed. The Russians are working on that, though.
Since Herzog has left Spector and Aleksandrova wounded and left behind by the CIA in Moscow at the end of the novel, I will grit my teeth and download The Russian Herzog/s follow up novel.… (meer)