Trigger Point

In 1986, young CIA officer Nicholas Ford, the star of Roth’s disappointing debut and series launch, is undercover in Colombia posing as a graduate student in agriculture with the USAID when he’s confronted by a gun-wielding stranger, who suspects he’s CIA. Ford fatally stabs the man in self-defense, and the repercussions put his mission at risk. Meanwhile, the spy must deal with keeping his actual job a secret from his wife, and his guilt over an affair with his college Spanish professor, who conveniently turns out to be a fellow spook. Roth makes no mention of any actual historical details of the period such as Oliver North and the Iran Contra scandal to facilitate reader buy-in. Multiple distracting flashbacks and clunky prose (“Tonight we bond against any disruptors to our plans for Central America”) don’t help. Despite a premise rich with potential—a green American intelligence operative cutting his teeth facilitating covert Reagan-era support for the Contras—this spy thriller falls flat. (Mar.)