The Crook Factory
Dan Simmons
Harper Torch 2000   
PB 562pgs
ISBN#0-380-78917-5

In 1942 Cuba, author Ernest Hemingway gathers an eclectic group of locals and cronies and with the sanction of the U.S. Embassy, forms a motley amateur spy network that is just competent enough to be dangerous.

Enter FBI agent Joe Lucas.  Ordered by J. Edgar Hoover to join Hemingway's group as a government liaison, Lucas (who is actually part of the FBI's elite SIS branch) is quickly put in a tenuous position; does he honour his FBI assignment, which could require his killing Hemingway, or does he cut his ties as his disillusionment with the FBI grows and his admiration of Hemingway's grit expands?

I have never been a fan of "spy vs. spy" novels, finding them repetitive and paranoid (ok, I admit I just don't "get" them).  But what saves The Crook Factory from being "typical", is author Simmons' fantastic characterizations and pacing.  From the stoic professional Lucas, to the complex and magnetic Hemingway, Simmons forces us to care about his players while carefully modulating the story flow, until we the reader, are forced into a break-neck reading frenzy, in an attempt to take it all in as fast as we can.

Simmons is a personal favourite, a man of incredible talents who has left his mark already within the Horror, and SF fields.  I dread the day he turns to writing Romance, but I know I'll be their with him, enthralled by his storytelling abilities.

Highly recommended.