This is the third book in the Charles Jenkins spy series and it seems to wrap up the story of the Seven Sisters, deep-cover moles from the Cold War that need extraction from Russia. The last two women have gone silent and the CIA needs to find out why and get them out, if possible. They turn again to Charles. He's barely survived his previous two forays into the country and is now on a Russian kill list. Surely another mission is pushing his luck too far. Except this mission calls for his very specific type of vintage spy craft.

Off he goes to do his duty. All seems to be going almost too well when he gets involved in a confrontation in a bar and makes a tactical error, putting him on the run from not only Russian agents, but a relentless Moscow police detective and a Russian mafia family. It will take all of his skills and allies old and new to find and extract the final two sisters to America. Dugoni keeps the story driving at a frantic clip and keeps the twists coming. Recommended!

Disclosure: Thank you to Netgalley and Thomas & Mercer for providing a free copy of this book in return for my honest review. ( )

"Third time is a pattern"....one of the quotes from the book. This one is just like the first two: CIA twists Jenkens' arm to extract female operatives from Russia; Jenkens goes, has adventures with Russians; is extracted by a crazy pilot; debriefed while recovering from wounds; returns to family who he missed for the whole 13 hour book. Fool me once....twice.... On the third time, I just skipped about 10 hours of listening and ended the book nicely. I assume all the kerfuffle in the middle was just like the first two oreos I ate. NO more Dugoni for me! ( )

If you have read any of the previous installments in the Charles Jenkins’ series you will recognize the man who will risk all and step in when someone is harmed unnecessarily. As Jenkins follows his conscience his task and situation mutates from a rescue to a life threatening, cliff hanger, where someone, if not everyone, is going to be tortured, maimed and everything in between. While rarely, if ever, being mentioned by name Putin’s fingerprints are all over this story and the music to which his lackeys are dancing. Dugoni has bested his last effort albeit with a bit more brutality, ugliness, and craziness employing a man who needs to be needed, who needs to help those who need while trying to find a balance in his life and history.

If the spy genre is your tonic nobody does it better than Dugoni. I encourage anyone interested in the mechanics of the espionage game to crack the pages and see how it is done. Thank you NetGalley and Thomas & Mercer for a copy. ( )

The Silent Sister by Robert Dugoni
Charles Jenkins #3

This is a series I believe would be best read from the beginning rather than jumping in at what I believe could be the last book of a trilogy. It deals with women spies sent in decades earlier to live deep undercover in Russia. I felt I was out of my depth and needed more about Jenkins, the women, the original reason they went in and didn’t feel up to wading through all four hundred well written pages too see if enough of the backstory would be provided. That said…

The writing drew me in, the characters were well developed, the plot intense and intriguing, my emotions were engaged, and yet…I ended up skimming BECAUSE I wanted to know how things turned out for Charles and Maria and the other “sister” but found I was not invested in this story strongly enough to read word for word having missed two books worth of words I should have read before.

With this in mind, I would probably read book 4 in this series, if there is a book 4, because I believe all of the “sisters” are accounted for by the end of this book and if Charles were to go out to work again the book would be a new story I would be able to follow more easily.

So…how to rate a book like this? I guess I will rate it on how much I know I will enjoy it once I have read books one and two of the series and THEN read this one afterward.

Thank you to Net Galley and Thomas & Mercer for the ARC – this is my honest review.

5 Stars ( )

The Silent Sisters by Robert Dugoni is the third instalment in the Charles Jenkins series but it holds up well as a stand-alone although I now wish to read the two preceding novels. The silent sisters are Russian women who have dedicated their lives to passing on secrets to the U.S. After two of them have not been heard from for an unrealistic length of time, Charles Jenkins is dispatched to Russia to find out what happened to the women and, if possible, bring them to America in order for them to begin a safe new life. Charles is on a death list in Russia and will be in grave danger while there. And then the action heats up. This is a well-paced cat-and-mouse thriller. What I found especially fascinating are the varied Russian settings. The characters are convincingly well-drawn and the plot moves at a break-neck pace. It keeps the reader on the edge of their seat until the conclusion. This is a definite bad-guy, good-guy yarn. As usual, a Robert Dugoni novel never disappoints and I look forward to his next novel. This is a thriller well worth the time. Highly recommended. Thank you to Thomas & Mercer, NetGalley and the author for the e-ARC in exchange for an honest review. ( )