Reviews for The fox

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From Booklist, Copyright © American Library Association. Used with permission.

Forsyth, the internationally acclaimed master of spy thrillers (including The Day of the Jackal, 1971, and The Odessa File, 1972), may be the victim of bad timing in his latest international adventure. It's set in 2019, with the focus on a British teen on the autism spectrum who has managed to hack into the heart of the U.S. national security system. Unfortunately, the real-life cyberterrorism of the past two years has far outpaced even the most gifted spy novelist's darkest projections, making Forsyth's premise seem a little ho-hum. The story takes a long time getting going, with a very meticulous, extended description of a British-American team of super-stealthies breaking into the teen's family home in a quiet suburb of London. The master spy at novel's center is a former chief of the British Secret Intelligence Service, called back into duty by the British PM. The action, once it gets going, is satisfyingly tense and world-based, but without the usual sense of shocked foreboding that Forsyth has been able to generate in the past. Still, the Forsyth name continues to have some drawing power.--Connie Fletcher Copyright 2018 Booklist

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