Dragon Misfire

The first half of Ted Bell's Alexander Hawke series was finely written, tightly plotted spy fiction with a touch of outlandishness; a kind of millennial James Bond for the 21st century. Starting with #7, Phantom, Bell began to lean on some of the genre's more tired tropes and spend less time making his plots fit together. He also kept going back to the well of killing whatever woman with whom Alex became involved in order to motivate the hero, a practice pop culture calls fridging. This, the 11th Hawke novel, so disposes of not one but two paramours in the course of its dual plotlines and would be given a negative star if such a rating existed. Some spoilers contained below.

While recuperating from an encounter with a vicious assassin. Alex Hawke is summoned by the Queen for the kind of discreet and ruthlessly competent service he has consistently provided in service to crown and country. But this request has a bit of a personal dimension as well, since it concerns a missing royal grandson last seen in a Bahamas nightclub owned by two notorious Chinese criminals. Though he may not be exactly 100% just yet, Hawke has enough in him to answer Her Majesty's call and woe betide any who stand in his way.

In a parallel story set during World War II, the new Chinese ambassador to the United States begins his job almost simultaneously with the Pearl Harbor attack by Japan and the declaration of war. Though he is meant to serve as a diplomat, Tiger Tang will find himself enmeshed in both British and American espionage work during the war, side by side with an Englishman named Ian Fleming and with Horatio Hawke. Their descendants will meet also, as the grandchildren of Tiger Tang own the club, Dragonfire, where the royal grandson was last seen and where Alex Hawke will begin his search.

While Bell's writing in Dragonfire is just about as good as it has ever been, it's being used in service of two barely connected plots that have only the flimsiest reason to be between the same covers. The Tiger Tang narrative is interesting enough but neither it nor the hunt for Prince Henry makes a full story and combined the seams show clearly.

In the course of his hunt Alex reconnects with China Moon, a People's Republic secret service operative whom he crossed paths with several years ago. An old romance is rekindled as her loyalty to her nation and its goals take second place to her love of Alex. But wait, you ask. As I recall, in Overkill, Alex rekindled an old affair with Sigrid Kissl -- is he two-timing her? Of course not! Bell had Sigrid Kissl killed back in chapter 6 at the hands of renegade super-assassin Shit Smith, who will not, by the way, be seen again in this book. Sigrid is not even given the courtesy of being fridged for the current narrative, only a potential future one. China Moon will herself be killed in an epilogue, with Bell doubling down on his grotesque habit of killing any woman with whom Alex grows close.

It's not common to find so many hack habits and choices in a book by an author of Bell's clearly demonstrated but pointlessly employed skill. But he's a published best-selling author and if his publisher permits he can indulge himself however he pleases.

The reader, on the other hand, is cautioned against indulging him at all.