The Lion (John Corey Series #5)
Nelson DeMille, 2010
Grand Central Publishing
437 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780446580830
Summary
In this eagerly awaited follow-up to The Lion's Game, John Corey, former NYPD Homicide detective and special agent for the Anti-Terrorist Task Force, is back. And, unfortunately for Corey, so is Asad Khalil, the notorious Libyan terrorist otherwise known as "The Lion."
Last we heard from him, Khali had claimed to be defecting to the US only to unleash the most horrific reign of terrorism ever to occur on American soil. While Corey and his partner, FBI agent Kate Mayfield, chased him across the country, Khalil methodically eliminated his victims one by one and then disappeared without a trace.
Now, years later, Khalil has returned to America to make good on his threats and take care of unfinished business. "The Lion" is a killing machine once again loose in America with a mission of revenge, and John Corey will stop at nothing to achieve his own goal—to find and kill Khahil. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Aka—Jack Cannon, Kurt Ladner, Brad Matthews, Michael
Weaver, Ellen Kay
• Birth—August 22, 1943
• Where—New York, New York, USA
• Education—B.A., Hofstra University
• Awards—Estabrook Award
• Currently—lives on Long Island, New York
Nelson DeMille has a over a dozen bestselling novels to his name and over 30 million books in print worldwide, but his beginnings were not so illustrious. Writing police detective novels in the mid-1970s, DeMille created the pseudonym Jack Cannon: "I used the pen name because I knew I wanted to write better novels under my own name someday," DeMille told fans in a 2000 chat.
Between 1966 and 1969, Nelson DeMille served in the U.S. Army in Vietnam. When he came home, he finished his undergraduate studies (in history and political science), then set out to become a novelist. "I wanted to write the great American war novel at the time," DeMille said in an interview with January magazine. "I never really wrote the book, but it got me into the writing process." A friend in the publishing industry suggested he write a series of police detective novels, which he did under a pen name for several years.
Finally DeMille decided to give up his day job as an insurance fraud investigator and commit himself to writing full time—and under his own name. The result was By the Rivers of Babylon (1978), a thriller about terrorism in the Middle East. It was chosen as a Book of the Month Club main selection and helped launch his career. "It was like being knighted," said DeMille, who now serves as a Book of the Month Club judge. "It was a huge break."
DeMille followed it with a stream of bestsellers, including the post-Vietnam courtroom drama Word of Honor (1985) and the Cold War spy-thriller The Charm School (1988) Critics praised DeMille for his sophisticated plotting, meticulous research and compulsively readable style. For many readers, what made DeMille stand out was his sardonic sense of humor, which would eventually produce the wisecracking ex-NYPD officer John Corey, hero of Plum Island (1997) and The Lion's Game (2000).
In 1990 DeMille published The Gold Coast, a Tom Wolfe-style comic satire that was his attempt to write "a book that would be taken seriously." The attempt succeeded, in terms of the critics' response: "In his way, Mr. DeMille is as keen a social satirist as Edith Wharton," wrote The New York Times book reviewer. But he returned to more familiar thrills-and-chills territory in The General's Daughter, which hit no. 1 on The New York Times' Bestseller list and was made into a movie starring John Travolta. Its hero, army investigator Paul Brenner, returned in Up Country (2002), a book inspired in part by DeMille's journey to his old battlegrounds in Vietnam.
DeMille's position in the literary hierarchy may be ambiguous, but his talent is first-rate; there's no questioning his mastery of his chosen form. As a reviewer for the Denver Post put it, "In the rarefied world of the intelligent thriller, authors just don't get any better than Nelson DeMille."
Extras
From a Barnes & Noble interview:
• DeMille composes his books in longhand, using soft-lead pencils on legal pads. He says he does this because he can't type, but adds, "I like the process of pencil and paper as opposed to a machine. I think the writing is better when it's done in handwriting."
• In addition to his novels, DeMille has written a play for children based on the classic fairy tale "Rumpelstiltskin."
• DeMille says on his web site that he reads mostly dead authors—"so if I like their books, I don't feel tempted or obligated to write to them." He mentions writing to a living author, Tom Wolfe, when The Bonfire of the Vanities came out; but Wolfe never responded. "I wouldn't expect Hemingway or Steinbeck to write back—they're dead. But Tom Wolfe owes me a letter," DeMille writes.
• When ashed what book most influenced his career as a writer, here is what he said:
Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand. I read this book in college, as many of my generation did, and I was surprised to discover that it said things about our world and our society that I thought only I had been thinking about, i.e., the ascendancy of mediocrity. It was a relief to discover that there was an existing philosophy that spoke to my half-formed beliefs and observations.
(Bio and interview from Barnes & Noble.)
Book Reviews
The Lion reminds us what makes DeMille one of the greatest storytellers of ours or any time.
Providence Journal
Authors just don't gett any better than Nelson DeMille.
Denver Post
A chilling reminder of how vulernable we still are despite all our homeland security measures.
Chattanooga Times Free Press
Scott Brick, narrator of 2000’s The Lion’s Game, has wisely been brought back to give voice to this sequel in which the titular master assassin Asad Khalil returns to the U.S. to murder everyone who ruined his fun the first time around, including wisecracking hard-boiled federal agent John Corey and his wife, FBI agent Kate Mayfield. The shocking first strike against Kate occurs in the middle of a recreational sky dive, smartly written by DeMille and heart-thumpingly enacted by Brick. The unwavering Khalil speaks in a slithery, chilling whisper, while series protagonist Corey is full of brashness and bravura. But as the plot proceeds like “a straight ball down the middle,” a description provided by the author in an interview with the narrator, both of the antagonists begin to display signs of strain. Thanks to Brick, they sound a little more anxious, uncertain, and human the closer they come to their final mano a mano confrontation.
Publishers Weekly
Corey is a more developed character this time around, and Khalil is every bit as intelligent, cold, and compelling as he was in The Lion's Game. If the book has a flaw, it's that it might be a little close... to the earlier book. On the other hand, Khalil is a single-minded guy, and it doesn't stretch credibility at all to imagine that he'd pick up right where he left off. —David Pitt
Booklist
Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:
• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)
Also consider these LitLovers talking points to help get a discussion started for The Lion:
1. Khalil is single-minded in his desire to kill. What motivates him—what are the roots of his actions? Do you consider Khalil the essence of evil...or is there some justification, even if warped, for his killing? Is revenge ever a justification?
2. What difficulties does New York area law enforcement officials face as they try to combat terrorists? Do those issues ring true in real life? How does John Corey rise above those difficulties—or does he?
3. Is Corey a likable character? Do you enjoy his sarcasm and wise-cracks, finding them funny and refreshing? Or do you find them tiresome and inappropriate? Is Corey fully developed as a real character, or is he a one-dimensional "good guy"? What about the other characters—his wife, Kate Mayfield, or his adversary, Asad Khalil? Another way to put it: does DeMille emphasize plot over character...or character over plot? And what's the difference?
4. What are Corey's views, which he expresses early on in the book, toward the countries of the Middle East and especially Iran? Do you agree with him?
5. Talk about the different skills that the hero and protagonist bring to their struggle? How is each trained? How do the two match up against one another—are Corey and Khalid equally matched, or does one seem to out match the other?
6. What does Corey see as Khalil's weakness...and how does he plan to use it against him?
7. Is Khalil's failure to kill Kate believable? How does she manage to survive?
8. What is Khalil's connection to the terrorist mission? How critical is his role in their truck bomb plot—or is that part of the story confusing?
9. Does this book give you pause to think about the security of the U.S. (and other Western countries) in the face of true terrorism? Does Khalil's fanaticism mirror real life terrorists? How realistic is Khalil from everything you've heard and read about actual terrorists?
10. A number of readers felt that (1) the book's opening sky diving scene is exciting; (2) the book's middle section drags and lacks suspense; (3) the ending is suspenseful, but confusing. Do you agree—or disagree—with that assessment?
11. Overall, does this book "deliver" as a top-notch thriller? Is it fast-paced with surprising twists? Or is it ponderous and predictable? Is the ending satisfying...does it wrap up loose strings? Or is it ambiguous, leaving issues unresolved?
12. Have you read other books in the John Corey series? If so how does this one compare, especially with its prequel, The Lion's Game? If you haven't read other Corey thrillers, does this book inspire you to do so?
13. Should there be a movie version? If so, how would you cast it?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
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