Liars and Thieves is Stephen Coonts as you've never seen him before-a story as chilling as it is unforgettable. Tommy Carmellini, a CIA operative who is unafraid to walk both sides of the law to attain his objective, uncovers a dark conspiracy that leads to the highest levels of the American government-and to a ruthless manipulator who will stop at nothing to keep a decades-old secret.Liars and Thieves opens as Carmellini is sent to post guard duty at a farmhouse in West Virginia's remote Allegheny Mountains, where top government operatives are debriefing a star defector: the ultimate KGB insider, a man with records on every operation and every dirty trick the shadowy intelligence agency has ever run, from Lenin to Putin.Carmellini arrives to find the guards shot dead and a ruthless team of commandos--American commandos--killing everyone in sight, then setting the house on fire. He escapes in a hail of bullets with what seems to be the sole survivor, a stunningly attractive translator who then steals his car, abandoning him, after a deadly mountain car chase.But one other person survived the massacre: The man whose fractured memory holds the KGB's most embarrassing secrets, including something for which someone will kill to keep it quiet. Carmellini teams up with his mentor, Admiral Jake Grafton, and together they track down the amnesiac defector. From there, the hunt is on as they become the target of a lethal squad of killers who can only be taking direction from someone very close to the president. From a bloody ambush at a posh Virginia estate, to assassinations on the decaying streets of inner city Washington, to a makeshift safe house at Grafton's Delaware summer home, no place is outside the ruthless conspiracy's reach. Carmellini and Grafton must learn to tell friend from foe as they fight their way through a poisonous wilderness of intrigue, all the way to a presidential convention in New York City-and to the surprising identity of someone standing on the verge of absolute power who has jeopardized the safety of the entire nation to prevent a dark secret from ever seeing the light of day.This was a different book to read but enjoyed it all the same.
Former Jack Grafton sidekick Tommy Carmellini, ex burgular andCIA operative has been promoted. Tommy is hanging out with his partner Willie the Wire when his ex girlfriend Dorsey O'Shea turns up and asks him to retrieve some sex tapes in which she was an unwilling partner. No problem he gets the tapes and dismisses herfrom his mind. The CIA then sends him to WVa to guard a Russian defector Michail Goncharov who is being debriefed. He arrives andstumbles into a full blown massacre where he kills a couple ofattackers and rescues a woman. He beats a retreat and now is accused, alone and being hunted by friend and foe alike. JackGrafton makes an appearance but Tommy proves himself more than capable. This book is from 2004 and the first in the Grafton andCarmellini series. This is a typical Coonts full of action fromfront to back and bodies everywhere. My kind of book.
What do You think about Liars & Thieves (2005)?
Captivating
—Gwen Utterberg
I let Lea pick me out a book while we were at Books-A-Million. I was in a rut of Dirk Pitt and Dean Koontz. She picked this one and she did great. I really liked the book and the main character. A CIA agent put into a tough spot with a Russian archivists and Tommy does his super spy thing and makes everything work out. He gets the girl in the end and he got the girl in the beginning who ended up being a traitor. I like his wise cracking friend Willie even though Willie gets cut up in the book and Jake Grafton is the wise old man. Good cast of characters and a good story.
—Jake
To paraphrase an old saying: “Just because you’re feeling paranoid doesn’t mean someone’s not trying to assassinate you.” Tommy Carmellini, has a lot of reasons to feel paranoid. In the best tradition of Dashiell Hammet and Raymond Chandler, Tommy is the kind of mystery/detective hero I find not only entertaining but almost believable. Self deprecating, introspective and just going along to get along, Tommy finds trouble everywhere…in Spades…so to speak. A former jewel thief with a special talent for picking locks, Tommy has been recruited by the CIA for special assignments, such as placing listening devices in areas where some people feel privacy is crucial. In his opinion he’s now just a bureaucrat, making a good living, getting in a lot of travel and looking forward to retiring with a government pension…while staying just on the edge of an exciting but legal life style. But, of course, that all goes away in a hurry when he stumbles onto a mysterious undercover operation where murder, chaos and bodies are strewn everywhere and he seems to have uncovered an agency cover-up. Tommy’s not a trained CIA spy and he really doesn’t want to kill anyone but what’s a guy to do when someone is constantly shoving a gun in your back or trying to put you down with a sniper rifle? And who can you trust when it seems that everyone is trying to kill you? He becomes a quick study and takes us along on a galvanizing and electrifying thrill ride from beginning to end. I’ll be watching for Tommy and Stephen Coonts again.
—Keith
