Product Description

CIA agent Micah Dalton is a "cleaner." He takes care of other agents' mistakes. When a friend and mentor commits a grotesque suicide, Dalton's investigation leads him into the snare of a madman, into the arms of a beautiful, mysterious stranger-and into a conspiracy within his own agency. Dalton knows only one thing for certain-this job is going to get very messy.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #428647 in Books
• Published on: 2008-03-25
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 528 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780515144024
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

From Publishers Weekly
Somebody is killing the former CIA agents who took part in a brilliant but highly illegal top secret operation known as Echelon. A couple of ghosts may also be involved, real or imagined, but they don't interfere with the credibility or the sustained excitement of the pseudonymous Stone's debut thriller. His hero, Micah Dalton, is a "cleaner"—a special operative sent in under cover to make sure no agency dirt gets into the public air. When his friend and colleague, Porter Naumann, is found savagely slaughtered in a Tuscany hotel, Micah tries to find out what happened. Cool and endlessly resourceful, the likable Micah does whatever it takes to clean up the mess. Also memorable are a shrewd Italian policeman, who can tell when something isn't kosher, and Micah's immediate boss, Jack Stallworth, "a short, sharp, bullet-headed hard-nosed razorback hog with all the languid charm of a quick knee to the jaw." The author, who has served in the military and been an intelligence officer, clearly knows his way around the higher levels of official treachery. 75,000 printing. (Feb.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
Despite a title that doesn't exactly roll off your tongue, this is a smoothly written spy thriller. Micah Dalton is a CIA "cleaner," the guy who wipes away the mess after something goes wrong in the field. When his good friend apparently commits suicide in a particularly gruesome manner, and then the man's family is murdered, Dalton discovers that someone is killing agents who have knowledge of a certain top-secret intelligence operation. Stone, a veteran intelligence officer writing pseudonymously, packs the novel with the kind of nitty-gritty detail that draws espionage fans. A promising debut. David Pitt
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review
A terrific read. THE ECHELON VENDETTA is terrifying, stylish, action-packed. -- John Lescroart

A fast and terrifying ride -- Tucson Citizen [Arizona]

As he follows a trail from Tuscany to London to CIA headquarters to the Rocky Mountains, Dalton encounters government spooks, Native American mysticism, hallucinogens, and gruesome violence with which he seems creepily comfortable. -- Entertainment Weekly

Combines the eloquence of Lehane's Mystic River, the plotting of the best Ludlum novels, and the brains of a LeCarrŽ. -- Ridley Pearson

Hallucinogens, Indians, orchids, butchery, treason, ghosts and politics pop up in Venice, London, Washington, Simi Valley, Butte and the high western desert in a smashing debut thriller by a pseudonymous former military intelligence officer.

Micah Dalton is a "cleaner" for the CIA. Cleaners go in and tidy up messes, and the mess left by the grotesque suicide of Dalton's friend and colleague Porter Naumann is a doozy. Naumann was found outside a chapel in a Tuscan hamlet having apparently ripped out his own throat. The shrewd Carabinieri intelligence officer on the scene, Major Alessio Brancati, recognizes that someone or something drove Naumann to suicide, making the spy's death a murder. Brancati allows Dalton to follow up on the very few clues associated with the murder, but he turns up again when the investigation takes Dalton to Naumann's old haunts in Venice, where the agent falls victimto near-fatal dose of the same vicious psychotropic drug that figured in Naumann's death. The effects of the drug dog Dalton for the rest of the book as Naumann's sardonic, pajama-clad ghost materializes whenever things get hairy-which they frequently do. Dalton enjoys a brief poignant flirtation with a gorgeous Venetion dottoressa but is called much too soon to London where Naumann's unpleasant family was found butchered in their Belgravia home. The intercontinental fiend seems to be an extraordinary tall, long-haired, American Indian in silver tipped cowboy boots who has also been doing in a number of minor ex-CIA operatives in the western states. Dalton saw his backside in Venice, but the man has the power to cloud cameras, a bit of technology available only to the very best spies, and it is that connection Dalton must unravel, a process that takes him back to the Agency and a long-hidden Company disaster that set the grizzly plot in motion.

Fast-moving, smart, sexy and alarming. Everything you want in a thriller. -- Kirkus Reviews, starred review, November 1, 2006

Stone not only knows the espionage scene but also how to plot a complicated, fast-paced thriller. Take [it] for an adrenaline-fueled test drive. -- Military.com

Stone's prose is dazzling, his descriptions of scenes are evocative, and his depiction of even minor characters is compelling. -- Library Journal

Well-written, intelligent and sometimes funny... show[s] us what life is really like on the front lines. -- Washington Post

Customer Reviews

Terrific!
I got to read an advance reading copy of this book, and found myself buying two copies for friends of mine. At first I thought "great, here's another CIA-thriller from some unknown author"...only to find myself immersed in the novel within only pages, and suddenly thinking "where did this author come from?"

Many surprises, a few violent deaths, and wonderful scenic settings. It's rare that all the elements come together as well as they do in this novel thriller.

But one warning -- the emphasis is on VIOLENT in the "violent deaths" sentence above. We're talking SIlence of the Lambs violent. Still, it's entertaining and fast paced, and truly surprising! I can imagine the folks in those studio offices in Hollywood jumping over each other to buy the movie rights.

an intriguing new protagonist

Quite often discovering a new and intriguing protagonist is akin to making another good friend, someone you know you'll enjoy, a person you want to spend time with. Such was my feeling when first coming upon Micah Dalton in The Echelon Vendetta. He's unique, having formulated his own morality system. He's also very much aware of the best and the worst in people. Cynical, romantic, often approachable, courageous, determined all describe Dalton.

He works for the CIA as a "cleaner" - precisely what the name implies. It's up to him to clean up messes made by others or step in when undercover operations go dramatically awry. His best friend and mentor is or better said was Porter Naumann. It appears to have been suicide when Naumann's body is found in a chapel courtyard in the beautiful hillside town of Cortona, Italy.

However, Dalton isn't buying any of that suicide nonsense and decides to do a little investigating on his own beginning in Venice where Naumann lived. (Don't you love this author's locations?) The deaths of Naumann's family in London corroborate what Dalton was beginning to suspect - there's a mad man on the loose, a killer hunting those with ties to the CIA and someone has to stop him.

Known primarily for his outstanding work in stage productions, Firdous Bamji delivers a suspenseful reading of this too-close-for-comfort tale. His narrative is well paced, his diction scrupulous, and his voice masterful.

- Gail Cooke

LeCarre's heir
Michah Dalton, a "cleaner" for the Company is called to Cortona, a small Italian town where his friend Porter Naumann has met a horrific end. Before the day is over Dalton is fighting for his own life with Croatian thugs and then a bright green spider.

Determined to avenge Naumann's death Dalton traverses the globe from a horrendous crime-scene in London to Langley to the badlands of Wyoming, Montana, and Colorado. At every turn he he encounters danger and loss of life. Yet he perseveres, sometimes by pure luck and sometimes by cunning and sometimes by military savvy.

George Smiley, LeCarre's quintessential Cold War spy confronted betrayal behind operation. Here it is duty that drives Dalton onward. But Dalton is also bright, literate and angst-riddled. If there is some betrayal lurking, it is not for me to say. But this book never lets go, never compromises, and never can be put down.

A new master spy designed for the Long War has emerged. May we see him again!