When I read Jeffrey Stephens’ first book, Targets of Deception, the birth of the Jordan Sanders series, I enjoyed it immensely.  It was a great book, but there was another reason.  Jeff did what many of us can only dream of doing, writing a novel that others want to read.  We dream of being the next Turow, the next Grisham.  Stephens was doing it.

That’s no longer the case. Jeff Stephens is no longer trying, but he has accomplished it with his latest book, Targets of Opportunity.  The plot is thicker, the characters more real, the story more captivating. 

Stephens’ hero, Jordan Sandor, is back in the CIA fold, pushed into the morass of terrorist intrigue where Jeff connects dots between the sovereigns we forget because of myopic focus on the enemy in front of us and their use and abuse by the enemies lurking in the background.  The story goes from North Korea to the mideast to Venezuela, but most of the time is spent in the Caribbean, especially one of its most magnificent islands, St. Barths.

Jeff’s descriptions of St. Barthélemy, from the gut wrenching drop when flying in to the restaurants in the harbor of Gustavia, bring back a rush of memories.  There’s no doubt that he had to do some heavy research to nail it down so perfectly, and any excuse to hang out in St. Barths works for me.  Most amazingly, Jeff was able to convincingly create a French hero, Lt. Vauchon, who not only demonstrated intelligence and boldness, but didn’t surrender at the first opportunity.  It’s not easy.

While the story can be read as a thrill a minute spy novel, as Jeff develops story lines in short chapters that shift from one side of the planet to another to provide the sense of a real time tale of intrigue happening by different players, only one of whom has the full vision of the scheme, there is still a lawyer’s view embedded in the book.  Sandor, for all the attributes that makes a spy worthy of admiration, still shows his humanity by doing everything possible to avoid killing whenever possible. 

When others on his team want to put the bad guys down, Sandor’s sense of humanity comes out, that no one need be harmed except to the extent necessary to protect someone or save the nation.  There’s no joy in senseless killing, even of the enemy, those who would never have given the same “courtesy” to us. 

At the same time, Jeff takes on the simplistic bureaucracy of government, the pencil pushers who try to dictate the rules by which others should play.  Jeff is no fan of grocery clerks with lists and platitudes, who have never put their butts on the line to accomplish a necessary task. 

One of the most remarkable aspects of this Sandor novel is that there was no need to resort to a gratuitous sex scene, as the story itself was more than enough to keep the reader turning page after page.  While Sandor has his moments with women in the book, it’s a quick cut to the end and he’s back to work.  If you want romance, go elsewhere.  This book is all about the intrigue, and the absence of any sticky sheets is deeply appreciated.

Jeffrey Stephens went from Manhattan solo practitioner to Greenwich spy novelist, and from lawyer who aspired to being a writer to a great writer.  I couldn’t be happier for him, and enjoyed this second Sandor novel immensely.  For those of us who spend most of our time reading opinions that would ruin a snooze for a narcoleptic, not to mention barely make any sense at all, Jeff’s stories are a pleasure and just plain fun to read.  I can’t wait for the next book in the series.