The Midnight House (John Wells Series #4) Book

PROTAGONIST: John Wells, CIA
SERIES: #4 of 4
RATING: 3.75

The subject of enhanced interrogation has provided headlines in the world news for the past few years. Those in favor of using these techniques feel that they provide information that would not be obtained using gentler methods. Breaking terrorism suspects might help dismantle terrorist networks responsible for thousands of deaths. There are others who feel that treating terrorism suspects more humanely results in more accurate and credible information. THE MIDNIGHT HOUSE provides some real food for thought for the reader, most notably around the impact on the interrogators over a prolonged period of time.

There's a unit of ten people who have been assigned to run an interrogation center at an obscure military base in Poland. They are known as "The Midnight House" and are following the prescribed and legal methods of interrogating suspects, more or less. The actions of the questioners are overseen by a doctor named Rachel Callar. As time goes on, she sees the integrity of the operation disintegrating and moving more into the realm of torture. Ultimately, two of the terrorism suspects "disappear", a fact that is covered up by leaders in the US.

The unit has disbanded and returned to the States. Over a period of time, seven of the ten are killed or missing, with the rest in mortal danger. It falls to CIA agent John Wells and his boss, Ellis Shafer, to investigate the suspicious deaths. In a very interesting turn of events, Wells goes undercover in Cairo, passing himself off as a Kuwaiti. What he finds out implicates some very important people in the power chain. In addition to the murders and two detainees missing, millions of dollars can't be accounted for.

Berenson skillfully raises many questions about interrogation techniques and leaves it up to the reader to determine what is right or wrong. He takes a relatively neutral stance on the interrogation situation. It is clear that The Midnight House members were unraveling as their operation wound down. Fortunately, he minimized the amount of graphic descriptions of the acts that were performed by the team.

The character of John Wells definitely took a back seat to other characters in the book, most notably Rachel Callar, who struggled with the morality of what was happening at the camp in Poland. Beyond the interrogation focus, the back story of Wells' struggle to accept the fact that his relationship with agent Jennifer Exley was over seemed trivial compared to the other events in the book. In addition, I found that the person who was actually the killer a curious choice, as he didn't seem to have the necessary skill and motivation to perform the murderous acts.

THE MIDNIGHT HOUSE was a compelling read, made more so because of the author's objective presentation of the highly emotional topic of interrogation and most especially, its impact over time on the interrogators. Berenson handled a controversial subject extremely well.