While this is technically a science fiction book, in some way it's probably better to think of it as a spy action/thriller. The SF aspects are either background or simple plot devices, and the stuff that diverges from ordinary science (other than the alternate timeline - Kennedy wasn't killed in '63 - in which the book is set) doesn't appear much until the end of the book. The protagonist, however, is a classic type for a spy caper - former agent with a military background and some serious character flaws, brought back in, despite having burned a bunch of bridges, because he has the right set of contacts in Turkey from when he was stationed there before. This story follows a pattern that will be recognizable to anyone familiar with James Bond (more the movies than the novels, actually), until fairly late in the game. That's not bad, really, because it's fun pattern, but still, it doesn't seem particularly original. Then again, the book is nearly 30 years old at this point, so maybe it was a lot more innovative when it was written. This is apparently a pretty early book by Drake, and it shows in a lack of subtlety. Still, it's an enjoyable read, and while I'm not going to rush out to find more books about the protagonist, it's certainly not going to stop me from reading more of Drake's work. ( )

In a word: stupid. Waste of time. You know how some sci fi books age well and others don't? Well, this book isn't even that old, as it was published in 1987, but it feels so dated, it's not even funny. I stopped reading this book early on shortly after I found out that the protagonist was training Kurdish rebels in Turkey for the ... NSA! Um, hello people. The NSA is not the CIA. That's what the CIA does. The NSA is an electronics intelligence gathering agency specializing in cryptography and basically eavesdropping. They've got the best computers and computer people in the world. What they DON'T have are military field agents training rebels in foreign countries. That's what the CIA does. Why in the hell would the US have two gigantic agencies like that exist to do exactly the same thing? As stupid as the government is, surely it's not that stupid, is it? But that didn't stop the "cutting edge" novelists of the late 1980s, early 1990s, who had just found out about the NSA, which has been in existence for decades, but whose existence had been officially denied until the late 1980s as it was deemed classified. It appears when writers started finding out about the NSA, there were all sorts of stories and books published featuring NSA spooks assassinating people, training military rebels, etc., just what the CIA does and not at all what the NSA does and it's totally, utterly stupid. It was stupid then, it's even more stupid now and I'm sure as hell not going to waste my time on a book whose protagonist fits this role. Aside from that, the writing seems fairly poor, the dialogue bizarre, the plot unlikely, and the character is just flat out annoying. All in all, a loser of a book. Most definitely not recommended. ( )