Format: Hardcover, 352 pages
Release Date: June 1, 2021
Publisher: Forge Books
Source: Publisher
Genre: Thrillers / Espionage
Evan Ryder is back in this stunning follow-up to The Nemesis Manifesto from New York Times bestselling author Eric Van Lustbader.
After thwarting the violent, international, fascist syndicate known as
Nemesis, Evan Ryder returns to Washington, D.C., to find her secret
division of the DOD shut down and her deceased sister’s children
missing. Now the target of a cabal of American billionaires who were
among Nemesis’s supporters, Evan and her former boss, Ben Butler, must
learn to work together as partners – and navigate their intricate past.
Their
search will take them from Istanbul to Odessa to an ancient church deep
within the Carpathian Mountains of Romania. And all along the way, an
unimaginable enemy stalks in the shadows, an adversary whose secretive
past will upend Evan’s entire world and everything she holds dear.
The Kobalt Dossier is the second installment in author Eric Van Lustbader's Evan Ryder series. After taking down a group known as Nemesis, which had connections in both Russia and the US, Benjamin Butler finds out just how much loyalty is worth when his secretive unit is forced to shut down and all of his agents are reassigned to desk jobs. Benjamin knows that he and Evan Ryder, his lone remaining agent who is told to accept her demotion or resign, have extremely dangerous enemies with access to the President. It really hits home when Evan lands in D.C. and is immediately taken hostage but escapes thanks to a near fatal crash.
It becomes clear that a new enemy has risen and they know everything about Evan. That point becomes even more clearer when her brother in law Paul is murdered, and his children Wendy and Michael are kidnapped. The abductors seem to have disappeared, but not before stuffing a message in the father's mouth. Evan and Ben learn they were also on the list to be eliminated. Even and Ben team up to find out who took the kids and uncover that a group known as Omega may be responsible. Her search leads her across the continents and calling on her old friends to help her but also leads her on a parallel tangent, one which will shed light on a stunning revelation.
3 1/2 years ago, Evan Ryder's younger sister Bobbi Ryder Fisher was allegedly killed. At the end of the previous installment, Evan got a shocking awakening thanks to her supposed friend Lyudmilla Shokova. Evan's sister was a Russian sleeper agent likely recruited at a young age who was part of a group known as Directorate 52123. *Spoilers* Kobalt aka Bobbi, has found a home within the Russian SVR black ops operation. She is as deadly as her older sister who she has hated for a very long time. Kobalt is sent to clean up a mess that she left behind, and finds that there are those within her own organization that want her dead because she refuses to sleep her way to the top.
In fact, Kobalt is the only proof that the program actually existed. It appears as though Lyudmilla is playing a long game, and Kobalt has become a dangerous player who is a product of Lyudmilla's desire for revenge on those who forced her out. Why Lyudmilla is keeping the sisters away from each other, and guiding them in opposite directions is unknown at this time. Sad to say, but the struggle for power within Russian intelligence agencies was the most interesting aspect of this story. Especially once you put Kobalt in the picture and she ends up exactly where Lyudmilla hoped she would with a little push.
I honestly think that Evan needs to know the truth about her sister being alive. Especially now that she's found out she has yet another one out there who may become her next target to get rid of. Will it change anything? Probably. I think that Lyudmilla is playing a dirty game when it comes to keeping the truth from Evan and Bobbi. Even when Lyudmilla ends up giving up a bit of shocking information about Evan's parents, it's not enough to say that these two women will never meet on the field of battle. I truly believe that EVL is a conspiracy theorist who see's Nazi's on every street corner. Omega is a cult that is convinced that there is a need for a ‘global purge’ if mankind has to revert to the values and ideals propagated by Christianity. Putting even the dastardly eugenics of Nazism to utter shame.
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