Beijing Red

March 7, 2016
This earnest, workmanlike series debut, penned by two U.S. Navy veterans writing under the Ryan pseudonym, introduces Nick Foley, a former Navy SEAL now working with a nongovernmental organization. Foley is leading an irrigation project in western China when a worker collapses with symptoms that look like Ebola. At a local hospital, the victim and Foley are treated as if they were living biohazards, and the government rushes Chen Dazhong, a representative of the Chinese version of the CDC, to the scene from Beijing. The situation could be bioterrorism, but Chen’s investigation is covered up by Commander Zhang of the Snow Leopard unit of China’s counterterrorism team. Foley and Chen, predictably, can’t let go of the matter, which spirals outward to involve a Russian spy, an American spy, and an evil genius who wouldn’t be out of place in a James Bond movie. Ryan writes well of the nuts and bolts of tradecraft and biohazards, but the prose is middling at best, and the characters lack depth.