Type of bind: Hardcover
Format: Bargain Price
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 376
Printing Date: December 31, 1998
Sale Popularity Level: 1965321
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Editor's Notes and Comments:
Brief Book Summary:
An ex-New York City cop. An easygoing jewel thief. They may be an odd-couple team but they have something in common: they're both caught in the middle of an illegal CIA smoke screen to stop a Cuban doctor from unleashing a devastating virus on U.S. soil....
'A gritty thriller that just won't let go.'-- Richard Price, author of Clockers
'A page-turner.'-- Vanity Fair
'Razor-sharp...a terrific thriller.'-- Chicago Tribune
'A narrative that satisfies on all sorts of levels.'-- New York Times Book Review
'Will keep you guessing to the very end.'-- Nicholas Pileggi, bestselling author of Wiseguys and Casino
'The two central characters...are brilliantly drawn.'-- New York Daily News
'A refreshingly taut, intelligent work of suspense.'-- Publishing houses Weekly
Amazon.com:
People write unfinished symphonies, so why shouldn't Vincent Patrick write an unfinished thriller? The author of such previous pleasures as The Pope of Greenwich Village and Family Business (remember Sean Connery and Dustin Hoffman as father and son in the film version?) leaves enough loose ends hanging in his latest book to cover the walls of what will certainly be a sequel. But if you can forget about closure, what's here is definitely very first rate.
It begins when Fidel Castro sends a personal message to the current president (never named, but described as having a shrewd wife who herds him like a Border collie), threatening to turn loose a nasty new airborne virus unless the United States gives him some respect. A slick CIA director comes up with a scheme to snatch the Cuban doctor delivering the virus, making it look like a hostage-taking during a botched hotel robbery. He recruits a couple of ex-Agency types, including one who is secretly (he thinks) having it off with the director's daughter. Also in on the scheme is a shrewd ex-cop, who signs on an ace thief for the robbery part but doesn't tell him about the Cuban virus or the CIA.
Of course, everything that could possibly go wrong promptly does, and the Russian and Italian mafias get involved, as well as a Chinese gang. Even if at the end nobody's fate is really resolved, you'll certainly have a good time getting there. --Dick Adler
User popularity level:
Rated by buyers 
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another book? His novels are some of the best I've ever read and though his writing is years between works, I eagerly await the subsequent one. So when is the subsequent one coming already?
Rated by buyers 
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The premise behind this book is very good. Capture a Cuban terrorist who arrives in the US, but make it look like something else. The "something else" becomes a hotel robbery that goes bad and the Cuban winds up being taken as a hostage. However, the hotel heist really does go bad and the Cuban escapes, along with ten million dollars in diamonds. Teddy Tedesco, ex-New York cop, must find the terrorist before he releases a deadly air-borne virus at a political convention in New York City.
As I said, the premise and the plot are quite good and convoluted. Just when you think you have the whole thing figured out Mr. Patrick throws another monkey wrench into the deal and you're off in another direction. However, I had a hard time finishing this book. Mr.Patrick is a very low-key writer and at times the writing fails to generate the excitement the plot calls for. It's not a bad book, far from it, but it didn't grip me with the same intensity of say a James Lee Burke novel.
Rated by buyers -
Top notch thriller, mystery. It is very realistic and true to its subject matter. One mistake is on page 223 at the top, where it refers to taking a Glock pistol off safety. Glocks have no safety in the conventional sense, and there is nothing to take off. The only safety is the unique trigger, which is an automatic safety of sorts. This is my very first time to read a book by Mr. Patrick, and it will not be my last.
Rated by buyers 
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I question Mr. Patrick's research not to mention his editors. There is nothing worse than reading along at a fast clip and hitting a speed bump, such as finding a sentence where a young Italian boy is saying goodnight to his elderly Italian neighbor by saying "Buena notte" A serious literary speed bump, especially for something as basic as 'goodnight'! AND...A Spanish-speaking man who received a childhood nickname because he was skinny would probably not call himself 'Flocko'. Flaco, maybe, but Flocko? I doubt it. And an Italian-speaking bank robber, who the plot reveals learned Spanish in prison, overhears a conversation in Spanish where someone says that the 'cosas' are in upstate New York. He recounts the conversation to his partner, saying he wasn't sure what the word 'cosas' meant. Well , if he knew some Spanish, as we were told a few chapters earlier, he would have no problem with this word. And as if that isn't ridiculous enough, cosas means the same thing in Italian as it does in Spanish. Apparently somebody was asleep on the job when this was in the edit stages. I found Smoke Screen to be entertaining, for the most part, although I do agree with one of the other customer reviews which complains about tangents in the plot, such as the Asian gang and the 'cosa nostra' and Russian mob stuff which is never really developed. It is a fun read. But not stellar.
Rated by buyers -
Biological warfare here in the US? It's a distinct possibility, and this novel plays upon that fear with plausible characters and a thrill-a-minute story line. Like any good book, this one will run you through a gamut of emotions. The ending is particularly satisfying, too. Why not 5 stars? Because unnecessary elements (the Chinese mafia, stake-out agents, and others) are introduced and are truly unnecessary to the story line. Still, highly recommended.
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