Curtis Cook

Brand on the Rocks Curtis Cook

No longer coddled by Her Majesty's Secret Service, James Brand, free agent, confronts his most fiendish and diabolical challenge of all time - the cold-blooded realities of everyday life. In "Brand on the Rocks, Private Lies of Privatized Spies," Major James Brand leaves the imaginary realm of formulaic mass-market spy fiction to face the realities of the late 1990's as a jobless senior citizen in a world stumbling toward globalization, privatization and endless war. A cultural icon that role-modeled men's behavior for generations, Major Brand had been pushed into retirement 20 years earlier by a feminist-led rebellion at Regents Park for his sexual aggression toward a pool typist. He managed as a private citizen to maintain his stylish, philandering, high-stakes, alcohol-fueled lifestyle until the neoliberal nightmare we call modern life caught up with him. He has blown through the personal fortune he accumulated as an irresistible and reckless super spy and is on the brink of losing his London flat to the bank. He is on the rocks."Very sad, very troubling but actually very funny all at once. We witness the real-world frailties, humiliations, joys, quirks and anguish of human struggle that the mythical hero has always managed to keep off-camera."Brand's former colleague Lily Nightlight calls on him and discovers an appalling version of the man she had once served and loved. She connects him with a former agent/colleague, now CEO of a private corporation in the flourishing international security/espionage industry. Despite misgivings over loyalties and principles of private enterprise, Major Brand finds the incentives, perks and female staff highly appealing. He is dispatched to Saddam Hussein's Baghdad to locate a Russian physicist who absconded with plans for an advanced missile defense system. The physicist, Brand discovers, is an old-line Soviet-era Communist and declines lucrative offers to lure him to the West. He is also unimpressed with Brand's entreaties to individual freedom, materialism and fulfilling personal dreams. With a major bonus at stake, Brand resorts to force and enhanced interrogation to uncover the missing plans - a bad move.