A Wilderness of Mirrors
A Wilderness of Mirrors
by Dev Stryker
A Wilderness of Mirrors
by Dev Stryker

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Hardcover - 320 pages 1 Ed edition (June 2000)
Forge; ISBN: 0312864418 ; Dimensions (in inches): 1.08 x 9.59 x 6.50

Other Editions: Paperback

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Average Customer Rating:3.0 out of 5 starsBased on 2 reviews. Write a review.
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Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com
Dev Stryker, the pseudonymous offspring of a husband and wife writing team with 30 million book sales and three Edgars between them, is back with the aptly named A Wilderness of Mirrors, the first Amelia Pierce outing since 1993's Deathright. As the book opens, wrongfully disgraced ex-CIA agent Burt Sergeant is teaching his wife Amelia, herself the daughter of a murdered CIA agent, to fly a Cessna, and Amelia is contemplating divorce--until she spots a body.
Not that one event had anything to do with the other. The divorce had been a long time coming; the body was a surprise. It was just that for the past hour or so, while Burt was ostensibly teaching his wife the rudiments of flying, Amelia had been fantasizing about crashing the seaplane into the side of a cliff.
Fortunately for the sanctity of marriage, there's nothing quite like a washed-up (literally) American youth who officially doesn't exist to ruin a reverie. Add to that hordes of mysterious twins who may hold positions of power at the highest levels of America's government. Mix it up further with Russian defector and ex-head of the KGB Grigor Valentinin, the opportunistic CIA Caribbean Chief of Station David Stanhope, under-the-gun Assistant Deputy Director of Operations Bill Avery, and his very strange deputy, Danny Zotter. Then factor in lepers, zombies, and Shining Path guerrillas, and you've got yourself a good-to-the-last-Andropov of a spy novel.

 Stryker has delivered a fast-moving, well-populated, sparingly written (almost too much so) poser that will likely have you flipping pages leftward nearly as often, and as fast, as you flip them to the right. --Michael Hudson

From Booklist
This is Stryker's second effort featuring Amelia Pierce, daughter of spies and the wife of Burt Sergeant, cashiered CIA operative turned bitter pilot for hire. Not exactly a fun couple, Amelia and Burt spend a good part of the first half of the story bickering, but then they get down to the business of thwarting a plan to take control of America by replacing key officials with their own brainwashed twins who were kidnapped at birth. (The question of where the bad guys found all those twins is... read more


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Avg. Customer Review:3.0 out of 5 stars
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4 out of 5 starsA good read, July 29, 2000
Top Reviewer Reviewer: Harriet Klausner (see more about me)
The insidious plan to take control of America without shedding one drop of blood is brilliant, though costly in terms of time and money, but expected to pay monster dividends. The plot is simply to abduct one identical twin as a child. Patiently brainwash and train that child by raising them into what you want them to become. Though some investments will fail, nurture them for years, so as adults they can replace the sibling left behind once that twin attains positions of importance in the government.

The conspiracy is successfully working until a minor glitch occurs. Amelia Pierce and her husband Burt Sergeant rescues an unconscious boy lying on the sands of the Caribbean's Isla Santa Vittoria. Shockingly, the lad turns out to be Matt Conrad of Dearborn, Michigan. Soon, Amelia, daughter of two deceased CIA operatives, begins to investigate how Matt ended up on the Sergeant family island. This leads her into the center of the plot to end America, as we now know it.

The third Amelia Pierce espionage thriller, A WILDERNESS OF MIRRORS, is an exciting tale that never allows the reader a moment of rest. The story line is filled with action, modern mind control theories, and multiple twists that will stun the audience with its ease and enjoyment. Amelia is a wonderful eccentric character, whose offbeat inner thoughts enhance the tale though it does slow the pace down at times. Still, Amelia's attempts as an amateur spy with the proper genes makes this a clever tale its predecessors (see DEATHRIGHT and END GAME) a must read for genre fans.

Harriet Klausner


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A WILDERNESS OF MIRRORS

The daughter of a master spy, Amelia Pierce was trained from early childhood in survival and, all unknowing, in tradecraft.  Her abilities -- to think clearly in the middle of a crisis, to react to physical danger without panic, to quickly grasp almost any spoken language -- would make her a terrific asset to any intelligence organization.  But she doesn't trust any of them.  Nor ours. Not "theirs," whoever "they" are this week.

The murder of her parents led Amelia to expose and destroy a secret international espionage group.  Then she fled, along with her new husband, Burt, once an agent for the CIA.  Now Burt and Amelia live on a tiny Caribbean island, running a struggling charter business, trying to save a collapsing marriage born out of the double attractions of sex and danger.

The rescue of a drowning teenager plunges Amelia and Burt into the middle of a plot to take over the government of the United States.  Matt is only seventeen, yet he has memories of graduating from college at twenty-two, of celebrating birthdays he hasn't yet had.  He has nightmares of living in the Amazon jungle and of a twin brother, Richard, and when asleep, Matt speaks the language of an Amazonian tribe, but once awake, he insists these are just dreams and gibberish.

Amelia's investigation into Matt's true past takes her from Washington, D.C., to the heart of the Amazon jungle.  Conspirators have placed operatives at the highest levels of the U.S. government -- halves of pairs of identical twins, kidnapped in childhood and raised in a secret facility in South America.  Fed false memories, trained in "twin telepathy," highly skilled in the use of weapons and hand-to-hand combat, they have been brainwashed to obey the slightest whim of the conspiracy.  If one fails, he can be replaced with his identical double and the plot goes on.  After the next presidential election, one of them will occupy the White House, and American democracy will cease to exist.

With a tribe of fierce women warriors as her guides, Amelia journeys deep into the green of the Amazon. Armed with little more than a pointed stick, Amelia is about to face an army of programmed killers.  She will need all her skills just to survive, but mere survival will not be enough -- she must have victory.


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