The International Refugee Society has twenty-six cybernetically enhanced “Letters”, and for the right price they will eliminate any one. These “Letters” have given up their families and their memories, exchanging them for ten years of service and a life of luxury when the time is done.

Agent G is one of these “Letters”. He’s been sent on a near impossible mission to infiltrate the Carnevale – the Society’s most dangerous competitor. It is while on this mission that clues from his hidden past begin to emerge. In the midst of all the violence and deceit, G will need to keep his wits about him and trust only a few.

After all, if an organization like the International Refugee Society will kill for the right price, how far would they go to keep the truth hidden?

One of the reviewers on Goodreads described Agent G as “If the agencies behind Johnny Mnemonic and Jason Bourne merged their R&D departments” and it is a description I completely agree with.

G is a highly trained agent, enhanced with what is referred to as Black Technology. Along with wiping his memories, his emotions are kept under strict control via the chip that is embedded in his brain. His body has also been subjected to several modifications, turning him in to the so called perfect weapon.

There is a lot of violence in Infiltrator – and I mean a LOT. Phipps does not skimp when it comes to that particular detail. People are killed left and right and not all of them are bad guys. Concepts like “collateral damage” are not even considered in G’s world of espionage. When an elderly couple comes across the carnage after G and one of the members of Carnavale have been ambushed, they are shot almost point blank before they can leave and possibly report what they saw. Deaths like this are fairly common throughout the book, underlining the fact that these are not nice people.

Overall, the plot line driving Infiltrator isn’t that original. Any one who is familiar with the manga and movies Ghost in the Shell or Battle Angel Alita have seen similar storylines – augmented individuals with forgotten pasts trying to remember the people they were, for better or for worse. Even the big reveal at the end, which has enough hints dropped through the story to make it fairly easy to guess, isn’t that original. Other books and movies have done the same thing and done it better.

At times I also found the dialogue a bit awkward and clunky. Even when the dialogue was between two characters it sometimes became difficult to tell who was speaking and there were a few times I had to go back to reread a passage to make sure I was following it properly.

The bottom line is Infiltrator is an okay book. Very violent and not very innovative, it gives us a story that has been done before but unfortunately doesn’t present it in a new way. While it might appeal to some, I wasn’t terribly impressed and I won’t be seeking out the rest of the series.