By Jack Mars
Jack Mars delivers with Chasing Zero, (Agent Zero #9). Once again, CIA operative Reid Lawson, aka Agent Zero, walks out of his living room onto the world stage to stave off an international crisis. This time he's too late to stop it, but maybe he can keep it from erupting into a world-wide conflict.
As with other books in the Agent Zero series, Mars gives us a super hero who is often pretty unspectacular. Lawson's body is breaking down and he has challenges aplenty raising two teenage daughters after his wife's death. Ah, but this does provide occasional ventures into the sub-plots of their lives which proves both interesting and tiresome at times. Interesting in that his girls may not be as skilled as their dad (yet), but they are every bit as savvy! Tiresome in that we see that "lather, rinse, repeat" cycle of their own adversities. But hey, they are teenagers and like teens, Maya and Sara are maturing at a teen's pace.
Mars' characters are believable. His dialog moves, the story is engaging, and (if you listen to the Audible), Brian Callanan's narration is fantastic!
I do find it interesting that for all the ambiguity in his life, the uncertainty of his missions, and the compunction surrounding his daughters, Agent Zero is dead certain he will see his dead wife again. "She's waiting for him!" Huh?! This too is an element of Lawson's humanness. One would think that a guy who trades in life and death, who is as careful and calculating and bright as Zero, would have a better blueprint for life after death than that napkin philosophy. Fluffy planning won't work for his missions, why will it suffice for the afterlife?
My recommendation: I enjoy spy-thrillers as much as I do ice cream, and I come back to Jack Mars and Agent Zero almost as often as I do my favorite flavor. Both still satisfy. On to Vengeance Zero (Agent Zero #10).
