The 4 Phase Man

Read The 4 Phase Man Storyline:

The last man standing...At the height of the cold war, a few elite secret agents earned the title of "4 Phase Man." From Berlin to the Middle East, only two of them survived....The first man in...Once he was a man with a family and a home. Then Gerald Goldman rose through the ranks of the CIA with his ability to survive in any situation, and to kill. Now he is called Xenos, the outsider, the exile. But Xenos has just come in from the cold, searching for a missing young man and finding an astounding conspiracy to co-opt the United States government. Between a tough and beautiful U.S. congresswoman who is being forced to betray her country and a deep-cover spy who is aiming at the second-highest office in the land, Xenos finds himself at war. And standing against him is the one man as deadly as Xenos himself: the only other 4 Phase Man in the world....From the Paperback edition.From Publishers WeeklyCounterterrorism expert Steinberg (Nobody's Safe) imagines a time in the near future when the Chinese are counting down the final days of a silent coup d'?tat: they aim to seize control of the U.S. by secreting a mole in the Oval Office. Modern-day superspy Gerald Goldman--aka Xenos Filotimo--is a former four-phase man, a vestigial breed of mythic CIA lone wolf trained to carry out all four skills of covert operations: intelligence-gathering, electronic warfare, counterintelligence and assassination. A decade after supposedly dying in an auto accident, Goldman is induced to come out from where he's hiding--on Corsica--to find his Corsican benefactor's brother, who is missing in New York. The trail inadvertently places Goldman in the middle of a blackmail-kidnapping involving the children of Valerie Alvarez, a congresswoman pursuing an inquiry that threatens to expose "Apple Blossom"--the code name of the Chinese conspiracy. It becomes apparent to Goldman that "Apple Blossom" is run by Colin Meadows, the only other remaining four-phase man. Continent-hopping, machine-gun-popping brinksmanship ensues between these two former-compatriots-turned-bitter-rivals, representing good and evil, respectively. There is an overdone subplot about Goldman's long-lost relationship with his father (who disinherited him); this diversion and other corny philosophical passages, apparently intended to build empathy for Goldman, slow the narrative pace. Meanwhile, however, entertaining subplots summoning up the Chinese mastermind and the ambitious, preppy Washington traitors work well. And Steinberg fans will applaud the mano a mano ending. (Apr.) FYI: Steinberg's novel The Gemini Man is being developed for film by producer Steven Haft. Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. From BooklistA "4 Phase Man" is a spy adept at all four key aspects of the business: intelligence gathering, counterintelligence, electronic warfare, and assassination. With the end of the cold war, only two of these "jacks of the Trade" are still alive. "Canvas," born Colin Meadows, has leased his talents to the men behind a far-reaching Chinese plot to neutralize the U.S. government. "Xenos," neJerry Goldman, has retired to Corsica after being betrayed by his army handlers in Afghanistan. His protectors, the Corsican Brotherhood, accidentally brush up against the Chinese and reactivate Xenos to take revenge. What follows is an action-packed outbreak of high-powered violence that spreads across Europe to the U.S. In this updated James Bond story, the lead characters are so seemingly invincible that they resemble cartoon superheroes. What saves the novel from terminal one-dimensionality is Xenos' father, a pacifist rabbi who abhors his son's life as a hired killer. This is a fast-moving thriller of the paranoid-political subgenre with an unexpected but welcome sheen of theological insight. George NeedhamCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved