A Long Night in Paris

Taking place over a frantic 28-hour period, Israeli author Alfon’s stellar debut opens with the kidnapping of an Israeli tech entrepreneur at Paris’s Charles de Gaulle Airport by a mysterious lady in red. Two operatives for Israel’s supersecret Unit 8200, Col. Zeev Abad and his deputy, Lt. Oriana Talmor, quickly determine that Chinese agents kidnapped the wrong person. Their real target, a corrupt member of Unit 8200 who was attempting to sell state secrets, slipped through the airport into the night. Alfon, himself a former member of the real Unit 8200, skillfully unfolds an authentic game of chase and capture, depicting a variety of eye-opening, 21st-century spycraft techniques. Each chapter—121 in all—is a short burst of action, description, or characterization, and though the plot does sag in the middle, weighed down by an excessive cast and subplot overload, Alfon has created a mesmerizingly real world. Fans of espionage thrillers will hope to see a lot more from this talented author. (June)