"The Deserter" by Nelson DeMille and Alex DeMille

Above: "The Deserter." Nelson DeMille and Alex DeMille. 530 pages.

I'm reminded of a quote from Frank Herbert's book/movie "Dune,".... there are "plans within plans..." not all is as straightforward as it is supposed to be.

I completed reading this book today.

As with Silva and Child, I've been a sucker for DeMille"s thrillers for some years. I was hooked after reading "Up Country" circa 2006.

Army Captain Kyle Mercer disappears from his post in Afghanistan. His Taliban captors gloatingly send a video showing Mercer in captivity. Two years later, Mercer sends a video to his commanders showing his grisly... and I mean grisly... treatment of his Taliban captors. Mercer disappears. Mercer is classified as a deserter by the US Army.

Mercer is spotted a year later in Caracas, Venezuela by a former army buddy. Top military brass send Scott Brodie and Maggie Taylor of the Criminal Investigation Division to Venezuela with instructions to bring Mercer, preferably alive, back to the US.

Brodie is a pro at this type of thing. But Maggie Taylor is a rookie. Why send her? Brodie, on the one hand, forms an attraction to Maggie, but, on the other finds reason to believe that she is a CIA plant and knows stuff she is not revealing. I'm reminded of a quote from Frank Herbert's book/movie "Dune,".... there are "plans within plans..." not all is as straightforward as it is supposed to be.

The resident CIA agent at the US Embassy in Caracas is a hardened veteran who was in Afghanistan at the same time as Mercer. Coincidence? Relevant? Brodie and Taylor depend on the CIA agent's help, but suspect the agent is not being forthcoming about his relationship to Mercer.

Brodie and Taylor follow leads that take them into seamy Caracas under life. A very informative narrative about the pitfalls of Socialism ensues... showing corruption, drugs, and even child sex trade. Confident Brodie is an experienced tough guy... with firearms and fighting skills. He's not afraid to enter this seamy world to out the bad guy, turn coat, Mercer. But Maggie doesn't have the experience for this world. How to handle this?

Leads picked up in the Caracas underworld take Brodie and Taylor to the Venezuelan jungles where it appears that Mercer is setting up a militia fighting force.... to fight whom?

Brodie and Taylor get to Mercer, apprehend him...The CIA guy is shocked that they have been so effective in finding Mercer. Mercer escapes... Brodie and Taylor apprehend him again. Mercer, seeing he's at the end of the road tells the story of his Afghanistan misadventure. It has to do with venal, reprehensible projects of higher ups in the US military effort in Afghanistan. Mercer showed resistance to such efforts and found himself set up for a fall by his bad guy seniors.

If you've read Jack Carr's two latest novels, "The Terminal List," and "True Believer," you'll find a similarity between them and this novel. Like Mercer, Carr's character, James Reece, also a captain in Delta Force, is the victim of the schemes of venal higher-ups in the military command. It sets one to wondering whether one author might have borrowed a bit from the other. Carr's "Terminal List" was published two years before "The Deserter." "True Believer," which carries forward the saga of James Reece, was published about the same time as DeMille's "The Deserter."

Any who.... so, Mercer goes underground and plots to undermine efforts of his former, bad guy, military commanders. Brodie and Taylor try to talking him in to doing the "right thing" by surrendering and telling his story in court, but Mercer, probably correctly, realizes that he has gone too far in working anti-American schemes to get his message out and survive a military trial.

The CIA guy turns out to be Mercer's worst enemy, looking to terminate him. And yes, as the plot unfolds, there are "plans within plans," where Brodie wasn't given the entire skinny on his assignment. Taylor acknowledges complicity in not giving Brodie the full story on her assignment. She and Brodie were never supposed to succeed in their effort to bring Mercer to justice. Mercer was targeted all along by military higher ups for assassination. But Taylor is penitent... and gradually convinces Brodie of her commitment to do the right thing ie. expose Mercer's seniors, including the CIA guy, as, well.... deep state plotters engaged in perfidious machinations.

The final denouement in the Venezuelan jungles is not without poetic justice. No need to be specific... to spoil... but, justice is done on all sides.

DeMille, as always, here writes good escape. His setting is an exotic locale. There are a lot of plot twists that keep the pages turning. DeMille's writing is full of double entendre and clever humor. If you like to read escape thrillers from time to time (it seems recently, I've been reading too many of them), "The Deserter" is a good one.