I will admit a connection to the book; I did some of the scientific research that backs it up, and I know Daniel Hecht. I never actually read the book till it came out, but when it did, I read it through in a few long sittings.
What I found was three books in one. On the surface, it is a good international thriller, with a talented but flawed hero, a team of realistic supporting characters, some whiz-bang science and spy tradecraft, and a varied assortment of bad guys. I appreciated the fact that the violence was not romanticized, and the consequences of violence had equal billing. The second book, contained within the first, is the story of a man who drinks too much, battles with anger, guilt, and his own limited emotional perception, and is afraid that his wife is drifting away from him. His search for his wife is literal, emotional, and globally metaphoric.
The third book, paralleling the first two, is a scientific and philosophical exploration of the fundamental question of evil. Hecht provides no easy answers, but provides a number of interesting avenues of thought. The one that catches me is this: Are good and evil human-created concepts that we impose on events, or are these concepts inherent in the structure of the natural world?
It is the love story, the hero's inner struggles, and the wide philosophical scope that lift this book above the usual cold war spy story or nuke terrorist novel. It is a fitting second novel for Daniel Hecht, after Skull Session. Skull Session was a gothic murder mystery that explored the question of human destiny and genetics by way of neurology. Hecht entertains us and makes us think.