Target Zero

In Riches’s uneven sequel to Nemesis, Russian oligarch Pavel Salagin, who lives in London, hires Mickey Bale, “ex-copper, ex-protection officer, currently at a loose end,” to protect him. When four terrorists kill themselves and five police officers confronting them on a motorway in Essex by exploding a Russian Sunborn warhead (“napalm for the new millennium”), MI5 hire Bale to spy on Sagalin, as they suspect that Russian military intelligence and Salagin are behind the outrage. It’s unclear what exactly Salagin is hoping to accomplish and why Bale is compelled to work for a suspected terrorist, as he seems to have plenty of money and skill sets to avoid any kind of conflict. Riches neatly integrates character background into the plot while supplying dialogue that consistently escalates into a battle of wits and dry insults, but he tends to qualify every object and interaction with a significance that expands beyond the story being told. In the end, a climatic confrontation resolves nothing for Bale or the reader, who’s left with a lot of new jargon and snappy comebacks with little else to consider. John le Carré this is not. Agent: Sara O’Keeffe, Aevitas Creative Management. (July)