ROBERT LANE

Full Name:	Robert Lane
Nationality:	British
Organization:	Sector 3
Occupation	Agent

Creator:	Arthur Hall
Time Span:	2012 - 2020

ABOUT THE SERIES

Robert Lane is an agent for Sector Three.

Sector Three is an ultra-secret division of MI-6 tasked with handling the situations absolutely nobody in authority wants their handling to be known. The department "is totally secret, even to some members of the Cabinet. We break accepted protocol because we couldn't operate otherwise, and if we didn't work that way we would be at a permanent disadvantage. In the clandestine world the time-honoured rules of engagement have, of necessity, long since gone by the board. We fight a continuous covert war where, like our opponents, we could never be called gentlemen".

The agents in the organization are also so secret that their real names are not used. For that reason, 'Robert Lane' is not the true name of the man we follow in these recorded adventures, but it is the one he will be known by throughout all the missions.

When we first meet this man, he is 45 years of age and seriously looking forward to his retirement from the Sector in six months. Despite being a still relatively young age, the years he has put in already and the missions he had managed to survive have taken their toll on him. Physically he is still in fine shape having only had one bad incident (read 'seriously wounded') in the seventeen assignments he has completed, all successfully. But his head is telling him it is time to move to something else.

Too bad Sector Three does not see it that way. There always seems to be just one more mission he is asked to undertake, all apparently in the hope that he will stop this silly retirement talk and just keep working until some opponent manages to stop him for good.

BOOKS

Number of Books:	6
First Appearance:	2012
Last Appearance:	2020


1			Sole Contact Written by Arthur Hall Copyright: 2012 A Sector Three operative in Tunisia is protecting a North Korean diplomat who wants to defect and who has info on sleeper agents in the U.K. Robert Lane is sent to assist in the transit but shortly after Lane arrives, someone resembling him falls from a high window and Lane knows he is a target for someone he cannot identify.

2			A Faint And Distant Threat Written by Arthur Hall Copyright: 2012 Going to look for the daughter of a famous politician is not something Robert Lane wanted to do even if she was an undercover operative for Sector Three. Pushed into it, he finds himself captured by drug smugglers in Milan and barely escapes. That is when things get much worse; his girlfriend is tortured and killed in reprisal and he wants revenge.

3			The Final Strategy Written by Arthur Hall Copyright: 2013 The new head of MI-6 has been kidnapped and Robert Lane is sent to Portugal to find the people responsible. He finds a former KGB General has a plan to use his hostage as proof the General knows how to resurrect the old Soviet Union. Unfortunately for Lane, the General also knows that Lane is coming after him.

4			The Plain Face Of Truth Written by Arthur Hall Copyright: 2014 A fellow Sector Three agent has left London even though he was set to head out on a mission. Carrying information the Sector is worried might be damaging to them, Robert Lane is sent to the Caribbean to either bring the agent back or eliminate him. Lane is not certain of the man's guilt and is instead sure there is another organization involved.

5			A Certain Way To Death Written by Arthur Hall Copyright: 2017 Sector Three is so secret virtually nobody knows about it. Nevertheless, agents for that organization are being picked off one by one by an assassin that then vanishes. It is the job of Robert Lane to hunt down and finish this killer before Lane becomes a victim himself.

6			The Suicide Chase Written by Arthur Hall Copyright: 2020 "The ultra-secret government department known as Sector Three has been assigned an impossible mission. Its success would bring vital information to those who work in the shadow-world of espionage, but the chances that the operative would survive are close to zero. Who but a madman would give such an operation any consideration? Only, perhaps, an agent who knows his life expectancy to be short - a man who fate has already sentenced to death."

MY COMMENTS

I am reminiscing about Edward S. Aarons' Sam Durell as I read these adventures and let me tell you, to me that is one heckuva compliment. Lane is not Durell and is not trying to be. The authors share the ability to present darn interesting stories about very interesting missions handled by a character who is strong, reliable, bull-headed at times, and always capable of both taking care of himself and making mistakes that put him in peril. And then there is the vibe I am feeling.

It has been a couple of years since the last Lane stories so perhaps there will be no more. Or perhaps one is just around the corner. Don't know, of course, though I hope for the latter.

GRADE

My Grade: A-

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