Man on Edge

In Hawksley’s Man on Ice (2018), Alaska National Guard Maj. Rake Ozenna helped thwart an attempted Russian invasion of the U.S. Relatives of the nine Russian soldiers he killed on Alaska’s Little Diomede island are now seeking vengeance in this unconvincing sequel. Three Russians try to kill Rake during a presentation he’s giving at a Washington, D.C., conference without success. Meanwhile, physician Carrie Walker, Rake’s onetime fiancée, is in peril inside Russia, where she has traveled to meet her vice-admiral uncle, Artyom Semenov, a specialist in submarine technology. Semenov is hoping to use Carrie to transfer some highly classified state secrets to the West. The operation is botched amid indications that the British embassy in Moscow has been compromised, leading to frantic efforts on Carrie’s part to stay alive. Rake goes to her rescue. Too many chance developments keep the lead characters safe. Hawksley fails to make the politics of his post-Trump, post-Putin setting feel real. [em]Agent: David Grossman, David Grossman Literary Agency (U.K.). (Mar.) [/em]