Twisted Wire by Ray Stone (Enda Osin #2)

Twisted Wire is the second book in the Enda Osin Mysteries by Ray Stone. It is also the second book I’ve read by this author. The first one, Isia’s Secret caught my attention because part of the plot took place in Cyprus, the very island I live on for the last 20 or so years. Of course I was excited when the author sent me the second book in the series to read and possibly review.

Enda Osin is a political columnist who writes brilliantly, but who gets himself in trouble all too often as he has the knack to uncover political scandals and has the delightful ability to put things so bluntly as to hurt the sensitive feelings of various political officials. So he’s not quite anyone’s favorite at the moment, when he gets a weird call. A call that is the beginning of yet another intriguing contemporary spy story.

In the first book, Enda met the beautiful West Indian Jessica Du Rose and worked together with her to solve his case. Now in this second book Enda and Jessica are happily married, which I was really glad to hear about.

Enda receives a strange call asking him to pick up and deliver a package, which makes him highly suspicious of the whole deal. He soon figures out that the call to him might have been a mistake, and by taking the courier’s identity and following through with the delivery, he might just uncover an espionage plot of industrial proportions.

Little does he know that soon he’s in way over his head and things are not quite the way he thought hey were. From a hunter he soon becomes the hunted, and his life is now in great danger. What’s worse, Jessica’s life is also in danger because she had to try to help him, and now the bad guys have their eyes on both of them.

However Enda is one lucky guy and has friends in – let’s just say – interesting places. One of them is “Fish”, a homeless guy with a hidden and highly suspect (ex-con maybe?) past.

What soon Enda discovers is that there are two major corporations both involved in industrial espionage, who are competing against each other to bring a particular product (hyper speed aircraft) first to market. The problem, however, is that people are dropping around Enda left and right, so now he has not only the big competing companies on his tails, but also various agencies, who are not so sure he is innocent of the crimes.

The plot is quite suspenseful – I found it to be more so than the first book in the series – and the action doesn’t let go even for a minute until the very satisfying end.

The characters are well fleshed out, and I enjoyed learning more about Jessica as well. However my favorite character was Fish, and with good reason. He was that odd one out there who is not quite who we think he is, who knows more than lets on (and here I mean not only information, but also how to survive), and who gave us maybe the biggest surprise at the end.

There are additional fun characters in the book, including the strange Olga and her friends, all who help Enda not only stay alive, but solve the case as well.

Enda Osin’s world is a rich one, full of interesting characters, some which do seem unsavory, but turn out to be anything but.

The writing is great, and the author managed to bring us into a fast paced and dangerous world, and make us enjoy every moment of it.

If I remember correctly, this should be a trilogy, so I’m looking forward to the third book in the series.