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Trader of Secrets

Steve Martini
William Morrow, Harper Collins (2011)
ISBN 9780061930232


Reviewed by Enid Grabiner for RebeccasReads (7/11)

This is another installment of Martini’s legal thrillers featuring defense attorney, Paul Madriani, his law partner Harry Hinds, and friend/lover/cohort Joselyn Cole.   As the story opens, Paul’s very faithful and very hulky private investigator Herman Diggs is lying in the hospital critically wounded from an encounter with a hit man with the handle of “Liquida.”  Leaving him to die, the assassin barely escaped with his own life.  Now he is on a vendetta to avenge Madriani, by hunting down and killing his daughter Sarah and then killing him. 

This thriller has a history from a previous novel and unfortunately it doesn’t fully materialize with enough information for a new reader.  We learn that Liquida has killed Sarah’s friend, but not why.  We also learn that he is after Sarah who is under protection at her aunt and uncle’s farm in Ohio.  On an early morning run on the property, he stalks and attacks her,  but thanks to the efforts of her dog, she escapes, but not without making a visual identification.   She is then placed in an FBI safe house. 

Paul, Harry and Joselyn are on a quest to end the assassin’s reign of terror and soon find them in the center of an international conspiracy.  Two US scientists are selling information on a combined NASA and the DARPA (the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency) development venture to a ruthless arms merchant.  Not only are they threatening national political security but they are releasing dangerous plans for a weapon of mass destruction. This technology poses untold danger to the entire world.

What was a personal mission to pursue a killer becomes a hunt leading the three on an expedition from Washington to California, onto Thailand, Paris and Mexico.  No longer is this simply a pursuit to bring to an end Liquida’s vengeance on them, but to race against time to stop the “trader of secrets.”

Although I enjoyed this fast-paced thriller, I had hoped that Martini would have revealed more about the back stories of each of the characters earlier in the novel.  The characters I presume have been fully developed in previous books and other than just occasional catch-up paragraphs, a new reader can’t get a good sense of who these people are and why they are in the position they are in. A lot of “why” questions remain unanswered. It makes it very difficult to connect to or have empathy toward anyone.  That does not mean to say one cannot recognize the good guys from the bad and hope for a good outcome for the obvious heroes, but the story would be all the more impacting on the reader if he had built an emotional connection with them.

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Reviewed by Narayan Radhakrishnan for Rebecca's Reads (6/11)

Steve Martini’s “The Guardian of Lies” gave a new dimension to the series character- lawyer Paul Madriani. The local gritty defense attorney suddenly became an international lawyer. His international exploits continued with “The Rule of Nine”…and I believe it has reached its zenith with “Trader of Secrets”. The villain Liqueda is also back in fine form in this novel.

Till now, Liqueda was a professional rival…an evil guy who has to be brought to book by Paul Madriani, the lawyer. But what would happen if Liqueda begins to target Madriani’s near and dear ones. The fight becomes personal, and that’s what happens in “Trader of Secrets.” Following the tension filled moments of “The Rule of Nine”, Sarah Madriani is kept in safe custody away from prying eyes. But Liqueda is close by and soon Sarah falls into his clutches. Attorney Madriani, in the meanwhile is in Paris in search of a NASA Scientist whose name was found in Liqueda’s safe. But they learn he has  been killed and that some NASA secrets might have fallen into wrong hands. Now its upto Madriani to save his daughter and also his country. We know that Madriani would be successful- but how he powers his legalese to good use forms the background of this novel.

Though this is a solid, 100% guaranteed edge of the seat read…. I yearn for a traditional Madriani thriller- the old ones like “Undue Influence”, “Compelling Evidence” etc. scintillating and pulsating criminal legal action in its pristine form.

A grand international legal thriller- but not a courtroom thriller.

 

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