NOTE: some of this is taken from my review of deMille’s The Cuban Affair (2017).

Nineteen years ago, someone whose opinions on books NEVER matched mine recommended Lion’s Game by Nelson DeMille, and I LOVED it. Since then, I’ve grabbed every new DeMille book and been puzzled by the inconsistency: for example, Night Fall was terrific. The Panther? Not so much. And don’t even get me started on Radiant Angel. I kept thinking, “what happened?”

But I couldn’t quite give up on any author who has provided me with so many hours of entertainment, so I had a positive attitude when I received an advance copy of DeMille’s latest, The Deserter, written in conjunction with his son, screenwriter Alex deMille (thanks, Simon & Schuster and NetGalley!)

Prior to reading  The Cuban Affair, I thought quite a bit about why I had been so disappointed reading some of deMille’s recent books (was it him? Was it me?), I had concluded that the John Corey character was the problem. In the earlier books, he was witty and could be charming. In the more recent books, his wisecracking had become constant, was more annoying than entertaining, and it seemed to have become his dominant characteristic, to the point where it came across as somewhat cartoonish. So, I was pleased to read that The Cuban Affair was introducing a new protagonist, Daniel Graham MacCormick (aka “Mac”). While I found Mac to be tolerably entertaining, the protagonist of The Deserter is…well, think of John Corey on steroids.

Scott Brodie and Maggie Taylor, of the Army’s CID (Criminal Investigation Division), are assigned to track down a deserter. Captain Kyle Mercer, a member of the elite Delta Force, disappeared from his post in Afghanistan, and a video released by his Taliban captors made international headlines (think Bowe Bergdahl). The circumstances aren’t clear, even whether he deserted before he was captured by the Taliban. A year or so later,
Mercer was seen in Caracas, Venezuela by one of his old army buddies, so the Army sends Scott and Maggie to  Venezuela with the assignment to bring Mercer back to America—preferably but not necessarily alive. Scott is challenged by the level of difficulty of their mission, made more difficult by a combination of Maggie’s lack of  experience, his suspicion that Maggie is reporting to the CIA, and their mutual attraction.

Mercer is basically Captain Kurtz of Heart of Darkness (or Marlon Brando in Apocalypse Now) – he has seen too much and gone too far to be easily convinced to return to the U.S. with the CID team. And Scott is a combination of every Harrison Ford – Tom Cruise – Arnold Schwarzenneger action hero, with a touch of Ryan Gosling. Frankly, I frequently wanted to throw the book across the room as a reaction to a few contrived plot points and the MANY smartass comments from Brodie. Apparently The Deserter is the first in a new series from the DeMilles. Frankly, this one mostly held my interest, but seemed deliberately written for the screen (not surprising given that Alex deMille is a screenwriter).

I can only give it three stars, and two of those are pretty much based on my memories of how good the earlier deMille thrillers were.