The Last Man in Tehran

In Henshaw’s improbable fourth espionage thriller featuring the CIA’s Red Cell unit (after 2016’s The Fall of Moscow Station), Kyra Stryker has just become Red Cell’s chief when the detonation of a dirty bomb in Haifa causes massive casualties. A month later, Kyra’s mentor Kathryn Cooke, former head of the CIA, learns that Majid Salehi is the head of the Iranian nuclear weapons program. Then the Israelis aim to eliminate Majid and other Iranians in London who are participating in talks with the U.S. about Iran’s nuclear weapons program; someone within the CIA must have leaked the information to the Mossad. Cooke’s successor orders a mole hunt. The clues that Red Cell leader Kyra Stryker uses to identify the mole strain credulity, undermining a taut plot in which she and her allies race to avert a wider conflict. Hopefully, Henshaw will do better next time. Agent: Jason Yarn, Paradigm Agency. (Dec.)