Richard Lourie
A novel can, and should, do many things, but a thriller need do only one. If it thrills, it succeeds, and if it does not, no matter how well it does everything else, it fails. Alex Berenson's third novel, The Silent Man, succeeds in seizing the attention from the start and never letting go until the end.
—The New York Times
Patrick Anderson
Berenson…tells his story expertly. He has a sharp eye for detail, a good understanding of the "tradecraft" of the spy world and a talent for vivid writing…He squeezes every drop of suspense out of the approaching nuclear holocaust. Or at least as much as he can, given that we know John Wells is on the case.
—The Washington Post
Kirkus Reviews
CIA superagent John Wells (The Ghost War, 2008, etc.) returns in another well-crafted thriller. When his people botch a hit on Wells, ruthless international weapons dealer Pierre Kowalski knows he needs to think fast of something valuable to trade for his skin. Wells isn't one to let something like this slide, especially since his fiancee Jennifer Exley was caught in the crossfire. In exchange for a truce, Kowalski decides to let Wells in on a rumor that's been making the rounds lately, something about an unspecified quantity of highly enriched uranium that the Russians seem to have lost. Wells, who already has had some considerable success when it comes to saving the country from grave national threats, takes the bait. Soon he and the rest of the federal government are scrambling to find out who has the uranium, how much they have and what they're planning on doing with it. You could arch your eyebrows at the hero's God-like hand-to-hand combat abilities, or the circumstances that conspire to place the same agent between the United States and total ruin more than once in the span of a few short years. It might be considered overkill that Wells is lustily ogled by every female in the book, from the supermodel to the tanning-booth attendant. And low groans are definitely in order for the tenuous clue that leads him to the book's climactic conclusion. But please groan quietly, so as not to spoil everyone's fun. Berenson earns his reader's suspension of disbelief with a relentless plot and many expertly wrought white-knuckle thrills along the way. Action-packed, thrilling and just credible enough. Author appearances in New York
