Rating: 
Summary: high body count, lots of action, what more do you need?
Review: "The Coil" is Gayle Lynds' fourth solo novel (she has also written three others with Robert Ludlum). "The Coil" is the sequel to "Masquerade" and features Liz Sansborough as the protagonist. This novel takes place approximately five years after "Masquerade", and Liz Sansborough is now a college professor teaching out in California. She is a former CIA agent who was deemed far too compromised as an agent to ever be allowed to return. Liz is the daughter of the notorious assassin, The Carnivore, and it is because of this connection that she was unable to return to the CIA. Liz teaches a course on the psychology of violence and now views violence as one of the great evils of society and that violence should be avoided at all costs, even in self defense. This is who Liz is, but the novel opens with Liz's friend, Sarah Walker, being kidnapped while on vacation and Sarah's husband being shot during the kidnapping. The kidnapper tells Asher (Sarah's husband) to get The Carnivore's files. At the same time this is happening, Liz is attacked and almost killed when she is out running. Liz is eventually contacted by the CIA to help them find her father's files and to save Sarah. This pushes Liz across two continents in a race to find the files before the kidnappers and to rescue Sarah Walker. The first thing that I appreciated about this novel is that it wasn't necessary to have read "Masquerade" to understand who Liz Sansborough is or what is going on. Gayle Lynds does an excellent job in setting up the story that all the necessary background is provided in a way that does not feel like it is just dropped into the novel in a big chunk. Rather, the background info is revealed to us in bits and pieces in such a manner that it is appropriate to the story that is being told. Another thing that I liked was how fast paced the story was. I have not read many espionage novels, but the image of what they were like was dispelled by "The Coil". This story moved! There are enough twists and turns to keep the reader guessing, and I was never entirely sure where the story was going. Lynds also kept the body count high enough that I didn't know who was going to live and who was going to die, and this kept up the tension and suspense. Not having read any of Gayle Lynds' work, I had no idea what to expect going into "The Coil." I was pleasantly surprised. One of the higher compliments I can give is by saying that "The Coil" was good enough that it made me want to read her other novels (specifically "Masquerade").
Rating: 
Summary: A spy thriller on overdrive.
Review: "The Coil," by Gayle Lynds, combines many familiar elements, including a mysterious international conspiracy, handsome men and beautiful women in jeopardy, electronic gadgetry, and a multitude of characters either in cahoots with or trying to kill one another. The main character in "The Coil" is Liz Sansborough. Liz is living a quiet life as a psychology professor in Santa Barbara, California. Her father, known as the "Carnivore," was a deadly assassin for hire, and Liz used to be a spy for the CIA. Suddenly, Liz's placid existence is disrupted when some very powerful and important people suspect that she has the Carnivore's secret files. These individuals will not hesitate to kill in order to get their hands on this potentially embarrassing information. "The Coil" consists mostly of chase sequences and conversations among conspirators. While running for her life, Liz teams up with Simon Childs, a spy for British intelligence who is romantically interested in her. Meanwhile, Liz's cousin, Sarah, and her spy husband, Asher, have been kidnapped to put additional pressure on Liz to turn over her father's secrets. At over four hundred pages, "The Coil" is padded with too many battles, incarcerations, and escapes. With its well-worn conventions, it rarely rises above the level of the average spy novel. If escapism and non-stop action is what you want, then you might find "The Coil" diverting. If you prefer original dialogue, well-developed characters, and meaningful themes, this run-of-the mill and wearying novel will disappoint you.
Rating:
Summary: The Coil
Review: "OH MY!!! Gayle Lynds has written yet another masterpiece! The suspense novel, The Coil, quickly capture's the reader's interest through complexities in both the intricate plot and the richly developed characters. She weaves in the presence of a powerful but shawdowy international secret society involved with past and current CIA members and introduces truly likeable heroes and heroines into the thick of this non-stop action thriller. The main protagonist, Liz Sansborough, returns from Lynds' first novel, Masquerade, and continues evolving morally and emotionally due to her changing life circumstances. To say that this author has an incredible understanding of human motivations as well as a finely tuned imagination, is quite an understatement. She has brilliantly created a smartly written, fast-paced espionage novel that has heart. Run, don't walk, to the nearest bookstore and buy The Coil. From the opening sentence to the very last page, Lynds will have her way with you and you'll be glad she did!"
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Summary: COIL KEEPS YOU COILED UP IN SUSPENSE!
Review: A NEW MASTERPIECE BY THE REIGNING QUEEN OF ESPIONAGE!
COIL HAS ALL THE RECOIL OF A HIGH POWERED RIFLE!
EXPERTLY WOVEN, THE PLOT, AND STORY LINE KEEP YOU RIVETED, AND GUESSING WHAT HAPPENS NEXT. UNPREDICTABLE, COIL HAS ALL THE TWISTS, AND TURNS OF A SNAKE, WITH ENOUGH ACTION TO KEEP ANY THRILLER FAN ENTHRALLED.
LIKE A RATTLE SNAKE, COIL GRABS YOUR ATTENTION IN IT'S PROLOGUE(ROTATING TALE), AND ENTRANCES, MESMERIZES, AND HYPNOTIZES YOU WITH IS PLOT, AND STORY LINE, TILL IT ATTACKS WITH IT'S STUNNING CONCLUSION, LEAVING YOU BRATHLESS, BLEEDING, AND WANTING FOR MORE!
WITHOUT A DOUBT ONE OF THE BEST ESPIONAGE BOOKS WRITTEN IN QUITE A WHILE, WHETHER WRITTEN ABOUT A MALE, OR FEMALE HERO! GET A HOLD OF THIS ONE, AND COIL UP IN YOUR BED FOR A GREAT READ! ENJOY!!!
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Summary: The Coil....
Review: A wonderful tale of suspense! I never thought I'd get so sucked into the story as I did. I rarely read suspense, but THE COIL is an engaging fast paced story. I read at night before I sleep, and there I was at 6 a.m. still reading. I was fighting sleep to read it. I wasn't expecting Gayle to kill the Secretary of State. It was surprising. She can be VERY proud of her work. She writes a wonderful, intriguing tale....
Rating:
Summary: Exciting international thriller paced at break-neck speed
Review: Another excellent work by Gayle Lynds. Her books with Ludlem were fantastic, but now that she is on her own, it's pure, unadulterated Lynds, which means fast-paced, snappy dialogue, and more than a few plot twists. An excellent vacation read. Too bad I read it before my vacation.
Rating:
Summary: Thrillers don'g get much better than this
Review: Caution: Reading The Coil, Gayle Lynds' new thriller, may cause loss of sleep, inattention to daily routine, and racing heartbeat. That's what happened to me for a few days in a row recently as I tore through the book. One night, as I commuted home from work, I missed my bus stop I was so engrossed in whether Liz and Simon (more about them in a minute) were going to escape from a hit squad in a deserted Paris building. The extra-long walk home was a small price to pay for this thrilling story(...) Lynds writes with authority-a major requirement for thriller writers-and keeps the story zipping along. The climax at the resort is nothing short of brilliant-it would be a crime to reveal any of the plot details, but the moment of self-realization on the part of the main villain is absolutely wonderful and chilling. Gayle Lynds is at the top of her form with The Coil. I can't imagine how she will top it, but I am certainly looking forward to finding out.
Rating: 
Summary: An Entertaining and Engrossing Work
Review: Fans of espionage novels know Gayle Lynds primarily for her excellent collaborative work with the late Robert Ludlum on the Covert One series of novels, such as THE HADES FACTOR and THE ALTMAN CODE. She is also a novelist in her own right, with her latest work THE COIL being her fourth solo novel. THE COIL stays firmly ensconced in the espionage genre and, while flawed in spots, is ultimately an entertaining and engrossing work. THE COIL features the return of Liz Sansborough, first introduced in MASQUERADE, Lynds's debut novel. Sansborough is a former CIA agent who has left that life behind, thoroughly satisfied with her quiet but fulfilling existence as a college professor in Santa Barbara. She also quietly lives with the knowledge that her deceased father was a Cold War assassin known as The Carnivore. Sansborough's past and heritage violently intrude into her life when she is attacked and almost killed for no apparent reason. Sansborough's cousin, Sarah Walker, is almost simultaneously kidnapped in Paris in an incident that leaves her husband, CIA Agent Asher Flores, seriously wounded. The catalyst behind these actions is the existence of files that The Carnivore apparently kept on his employers. Someone is using the information contained in these files to blackmail influential figures and guide their actions toward a secret agenda. The kidnappers want the files in exchange for Walker. Sansborough, meanwhile, has had no idea that her father kept such files and must somehow locate them in order to save her cousin, as well as herself. She finds herself caught between the kidnappers and the blackmailer, who has no intention of giving up the files. With great reluctance, she returns to the shadowy life of the secret agent, chasing across Europe in an effort to rescue her cousin and uncover the secret behind the files and the blackmailer. Her pursuit leads her to the Coil, a secretive group that quietly influences world events and whose very existence is threatened by the blackmailer --- who is one of their own. THE COIL is a great novel, although it might have been even better with a couple of modifications. Things get slightly complex here, even for a novel of this genre. Conspiracy novels are, by their nature, complicated, but Lynds occasionally becomes just a bit too clever. There is so much duplicity going around that by the final third of the book one begins to hear, if not see, the gears and pulleys that are supposed to stay hidden, out of sight, behind the curtain. The biggest problem, however, is the heroine herself, who seems more inclined to internally debate whether to pick up a gun and defend herself or join hands with her enemy and sing "Kumbaya." Such debates are better reserved for the abstract, as opposed to the field --- think of James Bond, tied up with a laser beam moving slowly toward his groin, wondering whether laying down his sword would make the world a better place. You get the idea. Aside from straining credibility, these debates, which bypass conflict and head into the land of self-absorption, tend to break up the flow of the narrative and, hence, interrupt the story. If we should see more of Sansborough in the future, it will hopefully be without the internal baggage. I doubt I'm really giving anything away by revealing that since Sansborough is alive and reasonably happy by the end of THE COIL, she ultimately chooses the course of affirmative self-defense rather than talking her adversaries to death. Notwithstanding these points, however, THE COIL is a worthwhile read from a writer who continues to improve with each novel. --- Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub
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Summary: It's been a long time since a book kept me up this late!
Review: First, a disclaimer. I read a lot of thrillers. I LIKE thrillers. Obviously. However, one pays a price for such enthusiasm. After a while, they tend to sound a bit alike. So one reads for the thrills and surprises and adventure and enjoys what one can. In other words, it takes quite a bit to make my blood race (as the cliche goes) about one. But the Coil affected me that way, right from the prologue to the final explosive twists in the last chapter. There's little I find more irritating than a weak ending. When I've spent 400 pages with a group of characters trying to solve some major problem, I want a major ending. If it's a really great book, it absolutely must have a major ending to be successful. The Coil does all of this and more. The final twist left me with my mouth hanging open it was that good. I suggest to everyone that they read Masquerade first, as I did, because as several of the other reviewers noted, although Coil is a really great standalone thriller, why deny yourself the octane boost? Read them back to back --- but plan for it --- because you're not going to want to do much else. What I discovered was that I'd say to myself, okay, after this chapter, I'm going to bed. Then I'd read that chapter, but then I'd find myself tempted, and I'd say, I'll read just the opening paragraph of the next one. But I wouldn't want to stop there either. So I'd read that chapter, too. On and on. Often I thought I'd figured out what was going to happen next, but most of the time I was fooled. After a while, that was pulling me on, too. The Coil has more twists and turns than an English maze, but each one was logical. She'd laid the groundwork, so when the surprise hit, you'd look back and see it. No deus ex machina. No new character appearing with a mouthful of answers. I'm not going to do a summary, because there are several excellent ones posted here. But suffice it to say that this is a story about a family of spies. The lead female character, Liz Sansborough, is ex CIA, while the lead male character, Simon Childs, is MI6. I was impressed by the complexity of their personalities, and the revelations they discovered about themselves. We were able to watch them grow and change. One of the reviewers said they were the traditional beautiful people. I don't think so. Liz is aging, and Simon's got a honker of a nose. The Coil itself is a group of multinational bigwigs who use code names. If I revealed them here, I'd ruin part of the plot for you, but when you read the book, I advise you to look for the meaning of the names, and then you'll see what an interesting way the author has of playing with theme. When I realized what she was doing, I loved it. It's something seldom seen these days. Too often in thrillers, action substitutes for thought. Also, in case you haven't noticed, the post Cold War spy thriller seems to be mostly about suitcase nukes and terrorists. Lynds has carved out a special niche. She's found aspects of our new world that are important to investigate and yield exciting stories without resorting to the tried-and-true that most people write about. I've read all of her books now, and the woman doesn't repeat herself. Also, none of her villains do anything simply because of greed. The villains in the Coil are no exception. They've started with what they consider altruistic motives, but in their attempts to defend and protect those motives, they've slid down the slippery slope. Part of the book's fun (and intensity) is watching their struggle and how they figure out how to justify what they're doing. Greed's basically a mask for what's really going on in people anyway. Lynds seems to know that. She goes for the jugular. Don't make the mistake of thinking this is lightweight, because it isn't. One of the other reviewers called it thoughtful, and I fully agree. In fact, it's intelligent. A rare commodity in any genre, including mainstream. When you finish The Coil, you're going to feel smarter, because you're going on a trip not just to exotic locales, but into psychology, international business, international politics, and the inner workings of espionage. Lynds lays out insider knowledge generously, even about weapons. I didn't know some of her spy stuff. Fascinating. I highly recommend The Coil. But if at all possible, do yourself a favor and read Masquerade first. Dan Brown, eat your heart out.
Rating:
Summary: Robert Ludlum Would be Proud.....
Review: Gayle Lynds has brought back Liz Sansborough with a vengence and has trapped her in a world where some very bad people are doing some very bad things to people she cares about and to others as well. The Coil is the name of a secret organization and as Lynds explains, it "was founded on a shared vision - that six men at the top of the world's power elite had a unique opportunity and responsibility. That from their lofty perspective...they could guide the world to peace and prosperity." Well, someone has thrown a monkey wrench into the works. Liz's deceased father, an assassin known only as The Carnivore, is said to have left behind, detailed records of the the "work" he did and someone is demanding them as ransom. Liz's cousin is kidnapped. She herself is savagely attacked. Her life as a college professor is put aside and she returns to her former life of tradecraft in order to uncover the files and put a stop to the killing. The search will take her across France and England and will call upon all of her knowledge and intellect (along with some help from a friend). This is a well crafted thriller that will keep you turning pages and wondering how this can possibly be resolved. How Lynds chooses to accomplish that is the secret of her writing and why you will be delighted that you took the ride that she has set out for you in this exiting new novel.
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