coolreads# The Kobalt Dossier

The Kobalt Dossier
Author: Eric Van Lustbader
Publisher: Head of Zeus
ISBN: 9781800243149

Evan Ryder returns in The Kobalt Dossier, the stunning follow-up to The Nemesis Manifesto from New York Times bestselling author Eric Van Lustbader.

After thwarting the violent fascist syndicate known as Nemesis, Evan returns to Washington, DC, to find her secret division of the Department of Defence shut down and her 'deceased' sister’s children missing. 

Unknown to Evan - after being fed the misinformation by her trusted Russian contact that her sister was killed three years earlier - Bobbi Fisher is actually alive and is working for the Russian intelligence. Now Bobbi’s children, nine-year-old Michael and 11-year-old Wendy, have gone missing. Even before Evan and partner Ben Butler, who is her former boss, can begin looking for the children, Evan is briefly abducted by foreign agents whom she initially suspected are connected to Nemesis. But she manages to escape unharmed.

Meanwhile in Russia, Bobbi, who now assumes the name Kobalt and works for an ultra-secret SVR group, is ordered to infiltrate a religious cult, co-named Omega by her superior, even though she has previously failed to identify the cult’s leader and the location of its home base. Also, there is a leak of the Kobalt dossier by a spy within SVR and Kobalt is ordered to find and terminate this person.

Now the target of a cabal of American billionaires who were among Nemesis’ supporters, whose influence reaches to the highest office in the country - the President of the United States - Evan must act fast before she is rendered helpless. If Evan is to take them on and hunt down her family's kidnappers, she will have to learn to work with Ben, and also navigate their past relationship.

However, their search for the children and truth will take them from Istanbul to Odessa to an ancient church deep within the Carpathian Mountains of Romania. And all along the way, an unimaginable enemy stalks in the shadows - an adversary whose secretive past will change Evan’s entire world and everything that she holds dear.

The narrative shifts between Bobbi and Evan as the thriller progresses, with interludes provided by various Russian politicians, spymasters, and Michael and Wendy. Lustbader does a fine job building suspense as he gradually unveils the complicated web of connections among the various players.

A masterpiece by an author who is still fresh and original after a long career in a genre he helped define. The Kobalt Dossier is a high-octane and intricately plotted conspiracy thriller that will blow the reader away with non-stop action. An enjoyable read.