Bea Reviews The Devil's Triangle by Catherine Coulter and J.T. Ellison

Series: A Brit in the FBI #4
Publisher: Gallery Books
Source: the publisher in exchange for an honest review
Release Date: March 14th, 2017
Buying Links: Amazon* | Book Depository* | iTunes* | Barnes & Noble
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Blurb from goodreads:

From #1 New York Times–bestselling author Catherine Coulter, the thrilling new novel in the remarkable series featuring Nicholas Drummond and Mike Caine.
FBI Special Agents Nicholas Drummond and Michaela Caine have a new mandate as the government’s Covert Eyes, assembling a handpicked team of top-notch agents to tackle crimes and criminals both international and deadly. But their first case threatens to tear the fledgling team apart when the enigmatic thief known as the Fox reappears with a plea for help.

Master thief Kitsune has stolen the staff of Moses from the Topkapi Museum in Istanbul, and now that she’s delivered, her clients are trying to kill her. On the run, she asks Nicholas and Mike to help her discover the true identity of her clients and stop the threat against her life. Under strict orders to arrest the Fox and bring her back to New York, the Covert Eyes team heads to Venice, Italy, to meet with Kitsune, and finds nothing is as it seems. Kitsune’s secret clients are the Koaths, a family descended from Moses himself, who will do anything, anything, to find Ark of the Covenant and wield its power, as their long and bloody history can attest. To execute their plan, they’ve spent years perfecting a machine that can control the weather, manipulating worldwide disasters that spin the entire globe into chaos.

From New York to Venice, from Rome to the Bermuda Triangle, Nicholas and Mike and their team are in a race against time, and nature herself, to stop the Koaths and recover the famous Ark of the Covenant. But can they trust Kitsune, their sworn enemy, to help them save the world from a family of madmen?

My Thoughts:

Evil twins, family drama, world domination, conspiracies, some science fiction, a little religion, even a little romance - "The Devil's Triangle" was a fun concoction and a whirlwind of a ride.

I had read the first book, missed the next two, then jumped back in with this one, book four. Despite missing two books of the series, this worked fine as a stand-alone. One of the key players in this story, not a member of the FBI team, was also in book one so that helped as I was already familiar with them, and their background (I've no idea if they appeared in book two or three).

Coulter and Ellison whipped a story that was grand in design, sort of an Indiana Jones and the Lost Ark updated and with a science fiction twist to it. No Nazis though, sorry. There is a lot of action, however, as trouble seems to follow Drummond and Caine wherever they go. Plans, both theirs and those of the villains, have a tendency to go awry. Fortunately Drummond, Caine, and their team are all good at thinking on their feet. They also had a tendency to do things that I don't think the real FBI is allowed to do. Though, at least the authors recognize that fact:

"I don't suppose what you're doing is anywhere close to legal?"
"Nope," he said cheerfully. "We're Covert Eyes, remember? I like Nicholas's motto: it's easier to ask forgiveness than to get permission."

Nicholas and his team follow that motto quite a lot during the story but they do keep the brass semi-informed. The case is a doozy and gets crazier as they go along: first, an old adversary asks for their help and to entice them, tells them a story about a man-made sand storm. They're skeptical at first but agree to check it out, just in case. From there, things get wilder and stranger. Coulter and Ellison gave us a cast of characters that is smart, funny, talented, and oh so likeable. Even a few of the bad guys are likable and I was rooting for them. I mean, ultimately I wanted Covert Eyes to be successful and save the world, but I kinda didn't want some of the bad guys to get in trouble. While the character development could have been stronger, particularly that of the twins, they were nevertheless interesting, mostly relateable, and a few of them were rather scary.

The story itself could have been trimmed, it didn't need to be 400 pages, but it was pretty fast-paced nonetheless. Science isn't my strong suit so I don't know how much of what happens is viable and how much is pie in the sky but I'll admit that I had trouble at times with plausibility.  I couldn't completely buy into certain elements and that slowed down the story for me. But I enjoyed the mix of elements and the grand scale of the story. One review I read said this would make a good movie and I agree. It reminded me of the thrillers you could watch late at night or on a Saturday afternoon, that mixed action, suspense, and a bit of sci fi and kept you glued to the TV for several hours.

"The Devil's Triangle" was a good old-fashioned thriller that had a little something for everyone. Curl up on the couch, take it to the beach, pack it on your carry-on for your next flight, "The Devil's Triangle" will keep you entertained.

My review of book one, The Final Cut