Rogue Agent no 1 by Jack Drake

Avon Books 1991

Rogue Agent was a six-part series that ran from 1991 to 1992. Jack drake is a house name. The real writin’ of the series was done between two authors; Robert Tine penned the first two and Bruce King the remaining four.

SPOILER ALERT!!! Lite spoilers ahead so reader beware.

The basic premise: After a successful undercover assignment in Rome, CIA agent and Vietnam Veteran, John Paine is shuffled through bureaucratic channels to find himself in West Germany with an assignment to pick up an East German Biophysicist defector that takes place across the Berlin Wall and into East Germany. What should have been an easy trip turns sour fast and Paine discovers a double cross. A fellow agent is killed, and Paine is to blame. Paine has some higher ups who would love to see him fail and though he’s only on administrative leave for the time being there is more going on as someone is out to make him look like a traitor and he must clear his name outside the official chain of command.

Paine is undercover at the very start of this. He’s described as his undercover character for a couple chapters. What’s hilarious is the physical description and the personality reminded me of the actor Joe Don Baker in the movie Mitchell. And I could not shake that sloppy, beer chuggin’, good ol’ boy persona throughout the rest of the book.

The excitement peaks early on the barge into and out of East Germany. This is by far the most enjoyable part of the book as the characters have just been introduced. You have no expectations or preconceived ideas of where the story is headed. I was pleasantly surprised by the turn of the events and thought this book may have just had a clunky start and now we are on track.

Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case. Once he’s suspected of being a traitor, he meanders around Europe pondering how his first undercover sting from the beginning of the book connects with the mishap in Germany. At the halfway point, I still didn’t know what the plot of this book was. I mean, obviously it has to do with him being framed and why but it’s so wishy washy about it. It’s more like he’s on vacation than on the hunt. Eventually he does start tracking down clues, but it takes a while to get there.

There is a bunch of cheeky dialogue and circumstances that are supposed to be funny but downright murder the spy atmosphere.

There are some enjoyable moments. There is a fair amount of tension towards the back when Paine realizes the set-up is still occurring and the folks he’s currently around are getting whacked. A guy tries to kill Paine with a saxophone. He does do some cool spy stuff like how to illegally get a new passport that seemed like something out of the Anarchist Cookbook. Um, should this author be putting this in print??

Not enough fun to redeem it though. They never give any further description of Paine’s character so I’m still seeing sloppy Joe Don Baker.

Not that I need beautifully written lines or anything, but this was real surface level stuff. (Just like my reviews!).

It gets hokier as the story progresses that it almost becomes a parody. It just keeps trying to make jokes that aren’t funny. It really started to get on my nerves and made me want to chuck it out the window.

But the absolute worst part about this book is there is zero resolution. It just ends. To be continued. Absolutely nothing wrapped up. No conspiracy exposed. No suspects. Nada.