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CIA Assassin and Other Stories

CIA Assassin and Other Stories
CIA Assassin and Other Stories

CIA Assassin and Other Stories

by Benson Grayson

Review by Barry Boy

I was given a copy of CIA Assassin and Other Stories by Benson Grayson when it was OnlineBookClub.org Book of the Day, in exchange for an honest review.

CIA Assassin and Other Stories opens with Ed Kramer, a burnt-out CIA officer at the Russian Desk, contemplating early retirement. Not that it is actually early by his reckoning because he had done two years in the army and twenty-three years in the CIA, which accounted for the twenty-five years he needed to have given to qualify for a pension.

His ‘boss’ asks one last mission of him, before he will consider his request, but ensures that Kramer will do it by threatening to release him without any pension at all. This leads to a rather exciting story, which sadly ends very abruptly without satisfying.

The next story is about the possibility of Saudi Arabia turning on the Western economies and doubling the price of oil overnight. The CIA comes up with a plot to thwart the Saudi scheme, but it ends in a mishmash of success and failure.

The third story is a total disaster for reasons I will come to, but involves master Russian spy handler, Colonel Borin, his future, his career and his marriage, amongst other things.

The stories in the book have the potential to be interesting, but the editing is so bad that it is a distraction. If I had not promised to review it, I would have returned it after the first ten pages. However, it only got worse.

The second story is not complete, because there are pages missing – possibly as many as five or six. The last pages in that chapter were just blank.

The third story is even worse with sections and pages missing from the start making it unintelligible! And that is without mentioning the bad grammar and total lack of editing throughout the book. The page headers and footers do not help either

This writer either needs help or to spend some time reading and re-reading CIA Assassin and Other Stories.

If you would like to know more about CIA Assassin and Other Stories by Benson Grayson, please go to: http://forums.onlinebookclub.org/shelves/book.php?id=104801

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