Finished: "Private Wars" by Greg Rucka

Finished: Private Wars by Greg Rucka, 2005, 9780553802771.

Fun stuff.  Espionage, despicable bad guys, shooting, sex, acronyms, Audi cars, remote and foreign lands, culture shock (for the reader), tragic ending.

Englishwoman Tara Chace is works for British Secret Intelligence Service.  She travels around the world doing dirty deeds.  IN the last book (one I have not read) she and her fellow agent were ambushed and the other agent was killed. Tara and that guy were lovers and Tara is pregnant.

Tara resigns her SIS job, has her child with help of the father's mother, and is recruited back to work.  Tara is asked to escort the adult son of Uzbekistan's President out of Uzbekistan.  The President's daughter and her goon had arranged the torture and murder of the Son's wife.  The Son wants he and his own son out of Uzbekistan.  Daughter wants power, Daughter shuts away Son in Son's house under guard.  Goon is murderous. Subplot of man portable anti-aircraft missiles sold by English and now loose.

Tara arranges things.  Tara kills several Uzbeks keeping the son under house arrest.  Tara and Son and Son's Son head out to a rendezvous in an Audi.  Tara and Co are found.  Their helicopter ride goes down in flames.  Subplot involved.  Son is shot outside of the Audi.  Tara and Son's Son try and flee but are caught. Tara is tortured by Goon but released through demands of the local CIA guy before she is raped by Goon and his own goons.

Six months later Tara is back to work at SIS.  Son is alive and found in neighboring Afghanistan.  Son is hijacking heroin shipments run by Daughter (now Uzbek President) and keeping the cash to keep himself in Afghanistan.  Son is suspected of planning an invasion to overthrow daughter.  Tara is told to dissuade him "by any means possible".

More things happen.  Tara wants revenge on Goon.  Ambush and shootout by Chase and fellow agent in Afghanistan.  Arrangements made to get Son's Son to Son in return for Son to never return.  Goon is killed.  Son wants to murder his sister.  Tara kills Son while Son's Son is hugging Son's leg.  Tara goes home to her daughter.

Comments:
1.  Nice change with the tough guy spy being a woman. 
2.  Plenty of realpolitik and Kissinger doctrine.  Money rules and deal with who is there.
3.  Sadists turned on by power.  Rape as a tool of torture.  Beatings bring boners to bastards.
4.  Walther P99 love.
5.  Browning love (presumably Hi-Power).
6.  Makarov hate.  What's with that?  Maks are quite good.  The cartridge is kinda weak but the pistols are accurate and extremely reliable.
7.  Maps and geography love.
8.  Acronym love. 
9.  Bureaucratic backstabbing and scheming as Tara goes about her business.  Half the story is about her handler, Crocker, back in the U.K.