jack barsky

“The Librarian” is a realistic gripping tale of espionage and sabotage during one of the most heated periods of the cold war. Great Britain had agreed to deploy US tactical nuclear weapons on its territory which the paranoid USSR leadership considered an imminent threat. Tensions between the two superpowers rise to heights not seen since the Cuban Missile Crisis. Enter the KGB, who sends agent Sokolov, one of their most skilled and experienced agents, to sabotage the Anglo-American plan by co-opting the naïve peace movement that had spread throughout Western Europe. Sokolov’s adversary is Lieutenant Colonel Forrest a hard-nosed dedicated USAF officer. Throughout this nerve-wracking tale, the two protagonists are engaged in a battle of wits, while only sensing the existence of the other. When they finally meet, the confrontation becomes personal and violent.

Although fiction, this book has a strong aura of reality as the author manages to put the reader right in the middle of the complexities, both technical and otherwise, of establishing a missile base on the territory of an ally while managing a very aggressive group of peaceniks that are, unbeknownst to them, influenced by a KGB spy. As the tale advances, it rapidly picks up pace, finally ending with a breathtaking crescendo of raw violence and a final plot twist that defies the imagination.  With “The Librarian” Whitson is filling a gap left by the passing of the great Tom Clancy.