Icon Review

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Icon ReviewFrederick Forsyth will never write a book as good as "The Day Of The Jackal" or "Odessa File" again. That's not a knock. Few authors ever get that lucky or brilliant once, let alone twice, especially their first two times off the blocks.
"Icon" suffers from a beginning that suggests otherwise. You read the first 300 pages and they grab you in a way few books ever do, with alternating suspense yarns set years apart, each somehow building on the drama of the other. You agonize for poor Jason Monk as his Soviet assets are undone one after the other by real-life traitor Aldrich Ames, kind of what Benedict Arnold might have been had the Revolutionary figure succeeded in not only giving up West Point to the Redcoats, but Fort Ticonderoga and Philadelphia as well. The fact that its now well after 1999 and the ultra-nationalist movement in Russia has not taken control doesn't lessen the sense of fear and loathing Forsyth gets across as he slowly sets up the principal story with a nice sense of balance, nuance, and loving detail. You think to yourself: "Can it be? Did Forsyth find his wellspring once more?"
Then it all goes to pieces in Part 2, along with the chief villians. After drumming in their diabolical competance in Part 1, Forsyth apparently allows them to forget their medication in Part 2. Not only do they act ridiculously, but Monk the hero, like the protagonist in "Fist Of God," seems to anticipate everything that happens in such a way to alleviate any creative unease the reader might feel. The book that starts so promisingly ends not with a bang but a yawn.
Even at the very end, when Forsyth reveals a key trick in his narrative, he does so in such a rote way as to raise more questions than answers. Clearly he went for a "He was my father" type finale, but what we get instead is another of those coincidences that pock the narrative's second half.
I love Forsyth, even lesser Forsyth. There's a lot to enjoy here, especially in the first half, and people who like their resolutions tidy and suspense-free may enjoy the rest as well. But I sort of wish the master could have taken more time to sort out the second half of his story with the same apparent care he bestowed on the first.Icon Overview

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