Summary: The conclusion, this time, is real.
The end of The Truth of The Matter (book #3), felt like a conclusion. Because there is a book four, I knew it was not. But it appeared that the terrorist ring had been broken up. Charlie was found by the good guys and he would be heading home soon, cleared of murder and ready to enjoy his regular life.
It was not to be.
The mission that he was on, to infiltrate the Homelanders had not been authorized. Waterman was dead and higher-ups did not want to admit that there was a major terrorist cell on US soil. So Charlie is stilling sitting in jail, framed for murder that he did not commit. And between the neo-Nazis that have taken him under their wing, the Black Muslim gangs that are trying to kill him and the corrupt guards he is in real danger.
Another memory comes back and Charlie realizes that he has to get out of prison and stop Prince or else there will be millions dead.
This was a good conclusion to the series. Like any spy/terrorism thriller you have to suspend belief in reality a couple times. Charlie is good, but he is still a relatively untrained teenager, so some of the things he does cross the line of believability. But that can be forgiven.
This really is a well written series. Because it is young adult, I think I feel obliged to comment that while terrorism is real, reading books like this can produce a level of fear and paranoia that is unhealthy. But I think in reality, that teens are probably less tempted toward that type of paranoia than adults.
Spy fiction of the last decade or two has lost its good guys and bad guys. There is not a cold war any more. So the political actors are all about power, not doing the right thing. Klavan’s libertarian streak seems just as pointed toward the incompetence of the US as the fanaticism of the terrorists.
If this is being read by young adults, it would be a good series to have a discussion around issues of power, the role of patriotism, sacrifice for the greater good and security. Those are pretty heady issues for a discussion with teens, but they are issues that should be discussed, so this series is one way to bring them up for discussion.
Purchase Links: Hardcover, Kindle Edition, Audible.com Audiobook.
The complete series as a single ebook, The Homelanders, is now available for $10.99.
Related Book Reviews
- The Last Thing I Remember (Homelanders #1) by Andrew Klavan
- The Long Way Home (Homelanders #2) by Andrew Klavan
- The Truth of the Matter (Homelanders #3) by Andrew Klavan
- Identity Man by Andrew Klavan (Standalone novel)
I just finished reading the Homelanders books. I enjoyed them, but don’t know that I’ll be looking hard to read a lot more Klavan–even while I have some sympathy with parts of the author’s philosophy as conveyed through Charlie and Mike, his villains struck me as rather wooden, and (as you alluded to in your review of the third book), I don’t know that his choice or portrayal of them does a lot for society or his readers. I suppose I’m simply much more like the evil history teacher than Mr. Klavan would prefer–even though I don’t recommend it without reservation, I enjoyed Cory Doctorow’s book /Little Brother/ (freely available online) substantially more than Klavan’s series. That book, incidentally, climaxes with California state police storming a secret DHS prison and arresting the guards therein. 🙂
I liked Little Brother as well. It is reviewed at https://bookwi.se/little-brother/
I think that Klavan is trying to have a simple ‘good guys’ and ‘bad guys’. That is difficult in the real world. Good guys are rarely completely good and bad guys usually believe they have good reasons for doing what they are doing. We can see the difficulty in a lot of political discussions. Not only do most people on one side or the other believe that the other side are the ‘bad guys’ they also believe that there is evil motivations on the other side. It is not simply that they have a different political philosophy.
Doctorow also veers into propaganda in most of his books. It is hard to find authors that really deal fairly with people that disagree with them. It is hard to do.
It is not by any means a perfect list. But I did some reading on disagreement as Christians and here is my annotated list of reviews. What it shows more than anything else is that there are not enough resources for Christians on good disagreement. https://bookwi.se/disagreement/
I wish that more Christians really worked harder on this. I think it is important to learn how to disagree, but still not vilify. And to disagree while acknowledging the best argument of the other sides.
Interesting; I’d forgotten you’d reviewed Little Brother. I think our impressions are largely similar. Good point, too, about the propaganda/disagreement aspects of the two books.