Fic­tion

Last Instruc­tions: A Thriller (Agent 10483)

Nir Hezroni
  • Review
By – May 15, 2018

At the end of Hezroni’s pre­vi­ous nov­el, Three Envelopes, the psy­chopath Agent 10483 vows revenge on The Orga­ni­za­tion and those direct­ly involved in prepar­ing him for his mis­sions. Last Instruc­tions tells read­ers of Agent 10483’s con­tin­ued adven­tures and dia­bol­i­cal plans. Read­ers will find them­selves fix­at­ed on the protagonist’s search for a hid­den nuclear war­head to use against his ene­mies. Agent 10483 must also avoid two assas­sins who are track­ing him, as well as the mys­te­ri­ous Herr Schmidt. Also in the fray is Car­mit, the psy­chol­o­gist respon­si­ble for train­ing him as an operative.

Hezroni inter­spers­es pas­sages from 1083’s logs with nar­ra­tive, giv­ing read­ers a vivid sense of intel­li­gence work. It is dan­ger­ous and demand­ing, tak­ing an enor­mous toll on all involved. In this case, it is dif­fi­cult to decide who is good and who is evil because The Orga­ni­za­tion trained a psy­chopath to be an assas­sin. Read­ers will have an oppor­tu­ni­ty to get into the minds of all par­ties as they fol­low the intri­cate plot. The author spent sev­er­al years work­ing in mil­i­tary intel­li­gence in the Israeli army, so he knows his sub­ject well.

Excit­ing and dis­turb­ing, this book will appeal to adren­a­line junkies and those who enjoy Daniel Sil­va. Book clubs will have much to dis­cuss with the polit­i­cal and eth­i­cal issues raised. This is a good choice for pub­lic library fic­tion col­lec­tions and syn­a­gogue libraries that col­lect con­tem­po­rary Israeli fiction.

Bar­bara M. Bibel is a librar­i­an at the Oak­land Pub­lic Library in Oak­land, CA; and at Con­gre­ga­tion Netiv­ot Shalom, Berke­ley, CA.

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