Title: Collision of Evil

Author: John Le Beau

"Collision of Evil" is not your ordinary mystery. It pretends to be, but even the first page does not reflect current styles in mystery novels. It is almost shocking that John Le Beau employs a writing style without hyper shock scenes, endless gore, and eroticism ad nauseam, pages and pages of four letter words, or gratuitous violence.

It is presented as realistic fiction with an intricate plot that agents must unravel by depending on a shaky network of multiple nations' intelligence files and operatives.

There is violence because the plot is wrapped around and into people for whom hate is the sole guide for thinking and action. Le Beau examines how hate reverses humanities' long struggle, based on experiences and human conscience, to understand the progression toward being human in a complex world.

Too many participants following diverse laws and purposes make it annoyingly difficult for a counterterrorist to identify and penetrate sources as well as locate which centers are attempting to create a world catastrophe to decimate as many people as possible regardless of ideology, age or location. Agents find the work of stopping the state of hate to be plodding, agonizing and dangerous.

The reader experiences the full scale of day to day uncertainties, fears and subterfuge. The usual intricacies of bureaucracies and the unknown commitments of most contacts increase the perils.

One cannot overlook the fact that current disclosures reveal that our government's agencies have conducted illegal, even heinous undercover activities which has compromised their reputations. In that light, Le Beau's novel offers a more benevolent view of clandestine operations. The ending is brutal, but much of that blood letting is brought about by other nations' agents, not those of the U.S.

The language is clear, accurate and intelligent as a journalistic essay examining terrorist ideology and its effects on all societies. The reader will find charm in village scenes, city scenes and in the details of personalities. This heightens the fear of what is at the bottom of hidden wells of hate. No matter the slightly detached style, a reader develops a chill and unnamed horror that, by the book's end, may become life long.

Le Beau earned a doctorate in political science from the University of Massachusetts, served as a U.S. Army officer, was a clandestine operations officer for the CIA for more than 25 years as chief of a CIA operational facility in Europe for counterterrorist and counter-proliferation operations and overseas case officer in various countries and continents.

Since 2006, he has worked as professor of National Security Studies in the College of International Security Studies and the George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies in Garmisch, Germany. Le Beau says that "Collision of Evil" is fiction.

(Carolyn Handy is a poet, essayist, visual artist and retired composition instructor who recently moved to Bismarck from Illinois).