Stone, _The Echelon vendetta

Stone, David. The Eschelon vendetta. New York: G. P. Putnam Sons, 2006. ISBN 978-0-399-15408-9.

Summary: An American agent of the CIA, specializing in cleaning up after operations that have misfired somehow, investigates the suspicious death of a friend. He thereby learns of a ridiculous but nonetheless very CIA-like internal conspiracy, a “dark operation” that, of course, misfired badly, with unpleasant consequences. Despite repeated applications of a persistent hallocinogen, the protagonist manages to out-macho all the macho bad guys, uncover the truth, and kill the principal conspirator.

This was a Christmas present from my brother, who was, I think, intrigued by the coincidence between my name and that of the author. However, neither the quality of the writing nor the tenor of the plot strikes me as very Stonean, and I was not surprised to learn that “David Stone” is a pseudonym (or rather, as he says on the jacket blurb, a “cover name”).