Thomas Laker is an employee of the NSA, but his real work is done in the shadows. After a tragedy claims the life of a woman with deep ties to the federal government, Thomas works with her granddaughter to decipher the clues that the older woman left behind. Will the search for the truth end up destroying the pair?

When it comes down to it, there are a lot of smoke and mirrors to The Honorable Traitors, but not much by way of story. The movie worthy chase scenes and fighting sequences are entertaining, which makes the 300+ pages fly by, but the plot itself can be broken down into few words. Overall, I like Thomas Laker and I would not turn down the opportunity to read more about him, especially given the fact that the author has let out few clues to the man's character. The shadowy criminal element has skills and knowledge that are questionable, which does diminish the book a bit.
Readers who like mystery thrillers will like the pacing and the characters, though they should suspend belief regarding some of the elements of the plot.

Disclaimer: Pinnacle Books and NetGalley provided me with an Advanced Reader's Copy of The Honorable Traitors. The choice to review this book was my own.

This is an implausible but readable novel which will make those familiar with the intelligence community groan. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC.

When Ava North's grandmother makes it public that she is leaving something 'special' to her, no one had any idea that she would be murdered because of it. Grandmother Tilly had been around for a very long time .... personally knowing the past 5 presidents. Was she killed because of what she knew? Whatever the gift was .. it went up in flames when a bomb was leashed upon the storage when she entered.

Thomas Laker, somewhat a super agent with a mysterious government agency, teams up with Ava to investigate the death of her grandmother. What they discover is one of history’s greatest—and deadliest—secrets. In the wrong hands it can unleash unimaginable destruction.

This thriller is just that ... filled with thrills and chills. The action is nonstop leading to an unpredictable explosive ending. The characters are well defined, if not exactly credible. The bad guy does things that will have you scratching your head. Although a really good writer, this one just didn't measure up to the Frank Quinn series.

Many thanks to the the author / Kensington Books / Netgalley for the digital copy of this political thriller. Read and reviewed voluntarily, opinions expressed here are unbiased and entirely my own.

Published by Pinnacle Books on January 30, 2018

Tillie North is about to pass something along to her granddaughter when she’s killed in an explosion. Washington breathes a sigh of relief, since Tillie has somehow managed to amass embarrassing secrets since the days of the Truman administration. Tillie’s granddaughter, Ava North, is present when she dies, as is a fellow who works for the Gray Outfit named Thomas Laker. The Gray Outfit is one of those ultra-secret Homeland Security organizations that are so prevalent in thrillers. So what was Tillie planning to give Ava?

The story tracks back to 1941, when Tillie was in Hawaii, gathering information for Naval Intelligence by using her feminine guile (and body) to gather information from a Japanese diplomat. By the time they part, Tillie has gathered more information than she expected to learn, and more than she is willing to reveal to her minders, for reasons that suggest the government’s faith in Tillie’s patriotism has been badly misplaced. But really, it’s faith in Tillie’s intelligence that has been misplaced, given that Tillie comes across as a ditz who scarcely deserves the reverence with which she is viewed by the novel’s central characters.

In the present, the story follows Ava and Laker as they pursue the meaning of a cryptic notebook that Tillie left behind. The notebook has something to do with Tillie’s work the war, but the phrases she jotted on its pages make little sense, and the entries suddenly stop. Why Tillie believed that the best way to impart a secret to her granddaughter was to send her on a scavenger hunt for information is beyond me. Whispering in her ear would have done the trick without risking Ava’s inability to piece together Tillie’s obscure clues.

To uncover the notebook’s meaning, Ava and Laker interview people in Hawaii and Washington who knew Tillie. That leads them to a series of adventures of the sort that are common in thrillers: chases and fights and shootouts and so on.

Opposing Ava and Laker is a ridiculous fellow known as the Shapeshifter, whose job is to discover secrets and kill people. The Shapeshifter has an improbable (and nearly supernatural) ability to ferret out information, but characters like that are common in thrillers, and I’m willing to roll with them as long as their exploits aren’t consistently eye-rolling. Unfortunately, as the Shapeshifter tracked down three men, each of whom had inexplicably been given one piece of essential information that unlocks the novel’s puzzle, my eyes began to roll like tumblers on a slot machine. The ability of Ava and Laker to track the Shapeshifter’s movements is almost as difficult to swallow.

When Tillie’s big secret is finally revealed, I had to wonder how Washington could possibly have kept it a secret for so many years, and why the combined might of the nation’s military and intelligence services hadn’t managed to uncover the truth. There are other scenes in the novel that are just as difficult to believe. A bad guy who needs a building permit gets one from New York City in just a couple of days. A character who has been tied up suddenly gets her foot free to kick another character at an opportune moment. I might have been more willing to suspend my disbelief if the characters had been more interesting, but Laker and Ava have too little flesh on their bones. The novel as a whole lacks credibility, interest, and energy.

NOT RECOMMENDED

Review featured at www.books-n-kisses.com

2.25 Hearts So what to say about this book? Not much. I really didn’t enjoy this book at all. The characters just didn’t connect with me. Something is just off. They seem so immature for what is supposed to be their ages.

The writing is not great either. I usually enjoy Lutz’s writing but not this time. I really had a hard time finishing this book and a number of times wondered if I should just put it down and start something I would enjoy. I didn’t but the feelings never changed.

Disclaimer:
I received a complimentary copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.

The Honorable Traitors by John Lutz is an interesting story for many reasons. The plot centers around two government workers searching for a mystery killer. Lutz has mixed some history, a love story and violence int one book. It all comes together at the end. The story line keeps the reader involved and John Lutz creates interesting characters. I would like to see both Laker and Ava North work . together on another case.

Ava North is an NSA analyst and her grandmother is Washington royalty. Part of a power couple (her husband is dead) dating back to the 1940's. When she tries to hand down an item to Ava it interests numerous agencies and other outside forces trying to stop this happening. With the help of Thomas Laker, Ava needs to look into the past of her grand-mother to stop a national catastrophe with links to WW 2 from occurring. An enjoyable book.

My wish is to give this novel a heartfelt good rating. It's clear that the author has worked hard to get the historical facts and create a drama revolving around them. For the most part, I enjoyed reading his story. But he bit off a lot and ultimately the story cannot succeed with the Mishima character. He asks too much of him to keep him credible as a character and a villain. Mishima is a superman of sorts, and he simply loses credibility as such because no one could possible accomplish the things he has been portrayed as doing. The incident at the Whitney Museum seems pointless. Wee are leading to the climax of the novel when the superspy Laker decides to head Mishima off at the museum. His prediction that the bad guy would be there is true, but why? Who needs to worship a painting before he sets off a bomb? And about this bomb, the supposed third set to explode at the end of World War 2. The other bombs were sent out from San Francisco closer to Japan to be assembled, but Bobby Sox, ten feet long and five feet wide, is already assembled. Then it is stolen and sent across the country to Brooklyn, where it is hidden. Um, that big a bomb can be stolen and transported without anyone the wiser? Okay. After the Whitney incident ,Laker is hiding, posing as a homeless guy. Why is that scene even in the novel? From there he very publicly goes looking for Mishima, visiting a city office, riding ferries. Why is he no longer worried about being found, no longer a homeless guy? We are not told why. The incident in Vermont defies belief. The ending of the novel on Governor's Island defies belief. And it's anticlimactic as well. The author wraps things up so quickly after such a detailed novel. And forget the final teepee scene. These professional NSA employees deserve better than a huddle in a teepee. Thanks NetGalley for the ARC. Sorry I couldn't say better things, but my honest opinion matters more.

It was a great book that combined world war 2 history with the present. It left me guessing till near the end.

A readable book but not the the author's best. Not a lot of suspense but a fast, fun read.