Masquerade

by Gayle Lynds

Book Overview

This People( Page-Turner of the Week is now available at a special low price. A woman who has lost her memory may be a CIA agent gone bad or an innocent target. But it's almost impossible to see the... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0312986033
• Release Date: February 2004
• Publisher: St. Martin's Paperbacks
• Length: 480 Pages
• Weight: 0.55 lbs.
• Dimensions: 6.8" x 1.0" x 4.2"

Customer Reviews

Enough Action and Adventure for Ten Normal Books

Liz Sansborough wakes with amnesia and her supposed boyfriend and lover Gordon Tate tells her she is an ex-agent for the CIA and that the international assassin called the Carnivore is trying to kill her because she?s the only person alive who has ever seen his face. Whatever doubts she has about this are quickly wiped away when two men break into her home, shooting. Gordon tosses her a gun and she instinctively shoots and kills one of the intruders. Afterward CIA agents show up and spirit her away to a safe house, where they tell her they need her help in bringing in the Carnivore, who is seeking asylum in exchange for information on who he?d been working for and who he?d killed over the last thirty years.However at the CIA training camp called the Ranch in Colorado, where they send her to hone up her secret agent skills and trade craft, she stops taking her antidepressants, which were really memory suppressants and she starts getting strange memory flashes that cause her to question who she really is. With the help of the seemingly bumbling director of the camp, Asher Flores, she escapes to find the truth and thus begins a book long chase that will have you reading the night away. The CIA declares Liz and Asher rogue agents, tells the press they?re wanted for murder and sends their best and brightest after them. Asher they want dead, Liz they need alive, because they have dastardly plans for her. It seems the CIA intends to kill the Carnivore, because he knows too much about some highly placed CIA big wigs.MASQUERADE grabs your attention from page one and keeps it long after you finish the book. There are more plot twists than you can shake a stick at and Ms. Lynds disguises them so well that you?re already half way into the turn before you discover you?re on a different track.I know there are those in this post 9/11 world who might pass on an international thriller written in 1996, but that would be a mistake. If you haven?t read MASQUERADE, which is kind of a prequel to THE COIL coming out in April, 2004, then as Stephen King used to say about Richard Laymon, ?You?ve missed a treat.? There is enough action and adventure in MASQUERADE for ten normal books. Enough solid writing to keep you reading all night long. Enough spy trade craft to turn you into a secret agent. I?m surprised the CIA allowed this book to be published, it?s that good.Review submitted by Captain Katie Osborne

Thanks Robert Ludlum!

Had I not read The Hades Factor, co-authored by Robert Ludlum and Gayle Lunds, I doubt I would have even looked at this book. But I am a longtime Ludlum fan and decided that if he could share authorship with Gayle Lunds then it was worth the chance. What a great book! I love amnesia stories, and spy thrillers, and Masquerade combines both. This was a real page-turner in the Ludlum tradition. This was a powerful and compelling story - as well as a great start for a new novelist!

A Great Read

I guarantee you won't be able to put this book down. You get caught up in the mystery from page one. The female heroine, Liz Sansborough, awakes not knowing who she is. There's a handsome guy taking care of her, and she discovers he's with the CIA. Eventually, she figures out her identity, but by then she's learned all the deadly skills of a top CIA agent. She has to incorporate her new identity with her old one to figure out what's happened to her and why, and to stop the villain. He's about to break the Bank of France and walk away with a billion dollars, which will shake the financial markets of the world. And there's a U.S. government "black" program in mind control that's based on an actual one that was supposedly shut down in the 1970s. "Masquerade" keeps you up until 3 a.m. because you'll want to know what happens next. Really.

Fast paced rollercoaster ride!

I received this book as a advanced reader copy when I was a manager of a bookstore. Having nothing else to read while riding the bus home, I took the copy with me and finished it within two days! The plot was intense, leaving you guessing what was happening next. In this day and age of the BIG authors pounding out books for bucks, Masquerade is a refreshing change. The characters are believable, not the cardboard cutouts that you find so often in this genre. Her (Gayle's) descriptive qualities give you an almost photographic detail of the settings and the people in the story. The last few chapters of this novel leave you sweating, gasping, and biting your fingernails to the quick! If you read only one novel in the next year, let it be this one. You won't be disappointed.

Kirkus missed the point, the fun, the chill on this one.

For a keen insight into the sometimes irrational, always quirky, and latent danger of the spy, counter-spy genre, as well as a chilling insight into our hedged, if not hopeful attraction to all that, read this spy novel about a fictional woman spy, (there are plenty) by a woman who has done just enough homework to let the fiction carry the story. You'll be challenged just to keep track of yourself while reading it. Gayle Lynds is on her way up, and, unlike many others adhering to this genre, Gayle's plot is alive and treacherous. It is not just another dry, though complex empty category into which she pours empty, if hyperactive characters. You may not know which way is north, which way in home, safely back to your desk, or porch, or reading room. You may lose track of who you, yourself are, until you finish the book. One thinks of Le Carre updated by Clancey. I read the book straight through. I tried to put it down, but I could not sleep. Like thrillers? Here's one with a special woman's tase of evil, and a thoughtful woman's brand of intelligence.