cover image Chaos in Kabul: A Malko Linge Novel

Chaos in Kabul: A Malko Linge Novel

G%C3%A9rard de Villiers, trans. from the French by William Rodarmor. Vintage, $14.95 trade paper (384p) ISBN 978-0-8041-6933-2

The uneven second Malko Linge novel to be published in the U.S. (after The Madmen of Benghazi) finds impoverished Austrian nobleman and secret agent once again taking an extremely delicate contract job with the CIA. John Mulligan, the White House national security adviser and Clayton Luger, deputy director of the CIA, inform Malko that the U.S. is sick of Afghanistan president Hamid Karzai's demands and has decided that he must be killed. Malko reluctantly takes the job, and heads to Kabul, where his mission quickly begins to fall apart. Malko hires Nelson Barry, a South African security expert, to do the actual shooting, leaving Malko free to have hot, graphic sex with his old girlfriend in Kabul, Maureen Kieffer. Soon after discovering that there's a traitor somewhere in his organization, he's on the run, though he manages to find time to have sex with several other women. Eventually, the story runs out of steam. De Villiers (1929%E2%80%932013) published more than 200 spy novels Hring Linge. (Oct.)