The writing team of Candice Proctor and her husband Steve Harris makes me more than slightly nervous when I read them. The Babylonian Codex is the third book in their co-written series of thrillers about rogue CIA agent Jax Alexander and seriously unlucky and PTSD suffering remote viewer Tobie Guinness. I picked up the first on a whim in one of my Friends of the Library bookstore deals, for a thrifty quarter. The second I bought for a bus book, when I, in a moment of weakness agreed to chaperone my sixteen year-old cousin Madeline's sophomore field trip to New York City. Between the bus being late (by many hours) and traffic I finished it in a day. I scared the ever-loving shit out of me, I kept expecting the bus to be shot up or bombed.As a former Army and Federal Government intelligence man, I have no doubt that Steve Harris knows where more than a few bodies are buried. I what he shares of the government's bad behavior is just the declassified stuff, can you even imagine what we don't know. Trust me you'll be paranoid too. I, despite my trepidation, bit and bought the third book and have to admit that it, in my humble opinion, is the best yet. The first book had a good concept but was a bit random. The second I found a lot slower. They're all good stories, with lots of shoot-em-up, James Bond-esque tricks, car chases, and scenarios. The cast of characters is also always large, which can make it a challenge to keep up at times, the second book set in Russia was particularly troubled in some respects. A certain amount of background in the government and military hierarchy is also necessary, otherwise you'll quickly get lost.
Like most of Candice Proctor's other stuff, romance and mystery alike, the characters are all well developed, and have a complete and fascinating backstory. The idea of remote viewing is a fascinating one, and in their author notes copious references are given (all very welcome and informative) including the push to read The Men Who Stare At Goats (they also insist, book not movie, which I greatly admire). It's the idea of remote viewing, the ability for a person, through meditation and focus to see the location of a target in a sealed opaque envelope, that lead me to classify this as Fantasy. Tobie is a crack remote viewer, reliable almost all the time, a rarity in itself. Even the book admits that reliable remote viewers typically are about are common as lightening striking twice, but the act that she also has some kind of weird force field which disrupts electrical gadgets in close range of her crosses from the unusual to improbable.
The book leaves on a good note, of course all entries in a series do. I'll keep an open mind however because I think that the relationship between Tobie and Jax, while completely platonic, has reached an interesting juncture. Their associating is cementing, so the books no longer seem like random meetings or forced acquaintance, and Jax has also started to overcome his prejudice towards remote viewing, which seems promising. He also wrecks cars like most people use Kleenex, which I confess i really enjoy.
