I was bored one day and went to Amazon to see what books could be downloaded for free. Operation Sheba by Misty Evans looked interesting. I like spy thrillers and thought I would give it a try.
Julia Torrison is a CIA analyst and ex-field agent, code named “Sheba”. The book opens with her partner and lover, Conrad Flynn dying when a bomb she made for an operation blew up prematurely. She is called back to Langley, given a new identity and is working as an analyst in the terror section. Oh, and sleeping with the boss.
Yes, it goes downhill from there. Turns out Conrad wasn’t dead, just going deep under cover to ferret out a mole in the CIA that is getting agent’s killed, Julia being top on the list. The rest of the book deals with Julia trying to decide between the two men in her life, finding the mole and saving everyone’s lives.
The book is riddled with spy novel cliche after cliche. The characters are lacking depth and feeling. I never felt invested in Julia or the others. Her struggle to decide who she would choose, the recently undead trainer superspy or the deputy director of operations desk jockey, was over so quickly, I had a hard time believing she really cared for the boss at all. She cared more for his dog!
Then there are the implausible leaps. The mole turns out, to no one’s surprise but the characters in the novel, NOT the boss she has been sleeping with, but the lady in the office who originally recruited her. Recruited and then put on the list to be killed? Okay. What was the motivation there?
To make all this go away, the bad lady uses her political might (she has designs on the top job at the CIA, of course) to bring a well known terrorist into the country to assassinate the people in her way. How she gets him past no-fly lists, border guards, Homeland Security, etc. is never explained. He just magically appears, ready to die for his and her cause, like a paid lacky. It never makes sense to me. It is my belief that the people at the top of the terrorist structure are not signing up for suicide missions. That is for others to do.
Tom Clancy may be long winded and over explanatory in his books, but I have grown to appreciate the style through reading this book. I also don’t have to worry about sex scenes with Clancy, for which I am very grateful. It isn’t nice to mix conversation important to the story with sex. I skipped to the end of the chapter and was lost.
This is a 2 star book at best. Amazon tells me there are other books in this series. I’ll pass. Clancy just came out with a new novel. As tired as I am of where he has taken Jack Ryan, I would rather read that.
Follow me on Twitter 
