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"Along with deft plotting and abundant surprises (including a socko finish), Lindsey offers suspense shrewdly balanced by a number of thoughtful meditations on the nature of betrayal and deceit. Sure to win Lindsey numerous new fans--and thoroughly satisfy his current ones."
--Publishers Weekly
"David Lindsey's latest novel has you breathlessly turning the pages to find the next twist. But what makes this book rise above the genre is the characters' ability to reflect on the way intelligence work seeps into every aspect of their lives."
--The Washington Post
"At the top of the pile is David Lindsey's An Absence of Light...(Lindsey) has a strong grasp of the moral strengths and weaknesses of his characters, and even his minor figures have a complexity that is far beyond the reach of most writers in the field."
--The Chicago Tribune
"...Tisler may have been part of a group of rogue intelligence officers..."
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The body of Arthur Tisler, an investigator in the Houston Police Department's Intelligence Division, is found in his parked car with a bullet in his head. Everyone hopes Tisler's death is a suicide so the case can be quickly and quietly closed. But if it's in any way related to his secret investigations, it could bring down the entire police department. Marcus Graver heads the Intelligence Division and is only too willing to sweep Tisler's troublesome death under the carpet, until new evidence comes to light that suggests that Tisler may have been part of a group of rogue intelligence officers. Graver realizes he can't investigate Tisler's death from "inside", so he gets help from an old friend, Arnette, a freelancer who has spent most of her career in the Far East for the CIA. Arnette's surveillance team leads her to Panos Kalatis, a former legendary deep-cover agent for the Mossad who has also become a freelancer. But Kalatis is now on the shadow side of the world--of international crime. Graver's quest takes him and his team to the very core of a vast criminal intelligence network, a journey into the deepest shadows. |
"...the intelligence division of a police department is a vastly different proposition.
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When I first conceived of this novel I'd written seven books, six of which were set against the backdrop of the homicide division of the Houston Police Department. I'd spent nearly a decade involved in researching those novels. But the intelligence division of a police department is a vastly different proposition. Homicide is an after-the-fact investigative puzzle, a kind of physical and psychological archeology. But good intelligence work involves the far more dicey challenge of anticipation...of divining the future. And it requires an investigative methodology that can be enormously controversial. This novel anticipated the current furor over the technological gathering and selling of personal--and private--information. It's not a problem that will go away anytime soon...if ever. A word of shameless self-service: I've been told by career detectives that Marcus Graver's life is the best portrayal they've ever read of what it's really like to work at this particular level of the profession. |