An Absence of Light

A female ex-CIA operative traces the death of a Houston Police Department investigator to a former, and legendary, Mossad agent (now dealing in drugs and arms), and the chase begins. By the author of Body of Truth. 50,000 first printing. $50,000 ad/promo. Tour.

Relentlessly paced and adroitly imagined, Lindsey's latest thriller (after Body of Truth ) opens with the apparent suicide of Arthur Tisler, a detective in the Criminal Investigation Division of the Houston police. Marcus Graver, in charge of the internal investigation into the death, discovers information implicating Tisler in CID corruption and making his suicide look suspicious--especially when other cops in Tisler's unit start dying. Next, Graver uncovers evidence that links his friend and fellow officer Dean Burtell to the shadowy figure of Panos Kalatis, an ex-Mossad agent who has spent years planning some illicit multimillion-dollar operation. Graver must apprehend this assassin in five days or the operation will be closed down and Kalatis will undoubtedly disappear with the money. Along with deft plotting and abundant surprises (including a socko finish), Lindsey offers suspense shrewdly balanced by a number of thoughtful meditations on the nature of betrayal and deceit. Particularly refreshing is the high degree of verisimilitude: readers can readily sense that the novel's events are beyond the ken of its protagonists and that a sinister world truly exists beyond normal perception. Sure to win Lindsey numerous new fans--and thoroughly satisfy his current ones.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

The title of Lindsey's (Body of Truth, 1992) ambitious seventh novel refers to moral darkness in the Houston Police Department and in an international drug and arms operation that appears to have corrupted at least three detectives. When the first cop, investigator Arthur Tisler, seems to have committed suicide, the department hopes to put a lid on a potential scandal. Enter Marcus Graver, captain of the Criminal Intelligence Division, still smarting from the departure of his former wife, who becomes doubly beset by a sense of betrayal from venal gumshoes he had liked and trusted. Aided and abetted by loyal department underlings, Graver initiates an unauthorized undercover probe by freelance operative Arnette Kepner, a former CIA agent, who eventually discovers that an ‚minence noire named Panos Kalatis is calling the shots behind an ongoing orgy of death and destruction. Kalatis, a former deep-cover agent for the Mossad who is now a world-class criminal, oversees a vast empire that sucks in seemingly respectable American businessman looking for a return on their investments in his world of cocaine, heroin, and high-tech information swaps. The colorful Kalatis is something of an equal- opportunity employer who, with a penchant for erotic danger, hires shapely female assassins to dispatch a growing list of blundering men. ``He was looking at her breasts when the second wedge of orange turned to napalm in his throat,'' writes Lindsey of a hit on an apparently dirty cop who was fishing on the beach when he had the bad luck to accept a poisoned orange slice from a beautiful girl in a bikini. Lindsey, who has been compared to Graham Greene but seems closer to Ian Fleming, knows how to spin a richly textured story. This rather implausible yarn hopscotches from thriller to mundane police procedural, with touches of existential angst thrown in--no mean feat for a writer trying to illuminate shadows. -- Copyright ©1994, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

When a member of Houston's Police Intelligence Division turns up an apparent suicide, a chilling chain of events is triggered, unveiling the compromise of highly sensitive data, a sophisticated drug smuggling scam, and the relocation of vast sums of money. To avoid publicity and scandal, Capt. Marcus Garver hires an old friend in the "intelligence-for-profit business" to assist him and a tight crew from the force in the pursuit of the wily kingpin of the enterprise. As Garver's team closes in, pillars of the community drop right and left while the stealthy "Greek" closes down his operation and prepares to drop out of sight. As literate and polished as it is compelling, this should rank among the best in the thriller genre. Working in a style reminiscent of John le Carre, Lindsey (Body of Truth, LJ 4/1/92) is a master of articulate, involving suspense. Highly recommended.
--Susan Clifford, Hughes Aircraft Co. Lib., Los Angeles
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

A lengthy cop thriller that starts out slowly but picks up speed en route to a spectacular conclusion, An Absence of Light is an entertaining look at problems within the Houston Police Department's Intelligence Division. When a cop in the division suspiciously kills himself, brooding Marcus Graver is brought in to determine whether or not it really was a suicide. Graver recruits an elite undercover organization to help him when more cops begin turning up dead, and things start to speed up when Graver figures out that drug runner Panos Kalatis is behind it all. Lindsay's style is wordy, but there's enough sophisticated bugging techniques, Uzis with silencers, and layer after layer of plot twists and turns to overcome that. The ending is not what the reader would expect, which is both good and bad (good because it's unexpected, bad because it's a little less than satisfying). Nonetheless, a good page-turner. Joe Collins