A page-turner that’s enriched by the author’s obvious familiarity with the intricacies of combating 21st-century terrorism.
An elite task force works frantically to prevent the next wave of terrorist attacks.
After more than two decades in the military, including a period in the Special Forces, Taylor (Ghosts of War, 2016, etc.) returns with the latest thriller featuring Nephilim “Pike” Logan. On the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, Dexter Trippler, the owner of a minor airplane maintenance firm, secures his first government contract by using a shell company to bribe the son of an influential Saudi financier. By the end of the day, Trippler is shocked to learn that his Saudi contact is connected to the terrorist attack. This information does not prevent Trippler from building his business and acquiring more government contracts until 15 years later when an illegal data dump (larger than WikiLeaks) threatens to connect Trippler with the Saudi financing of Islamic extremism. To prevent this exposure, Trippler enlists the help of his head of security, Johan van Rensburg, a former Special Forces operator with South Africa’s Reconnaissance Commandos. A competent professional with a strict moral code, van Rensburg travels to North Africa and uncovers an international terrorist plot. Pike and his teammates from the Taskforce, an elite off-the-books paramilitary unit, also find their way to North Africa and into the midst of a Saudi-backed Moroccan terrorist cell. Those looking only for action-filled suspense won't be disappointed, but Taylor does expand his story with brief and intriguing discourses on the role of women in combat and whether violence is an intrinsic element of the Islamic faith.
A page-turner that’s enriched by the author’s obvious familiarity with the intricacies of combating 21st-century terrorism.Pub Date: Jan. 10, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-101-98476-5
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: Dec. 18, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2017
Though his scenarios aren’t always plausible in strictest terms, King’s imagination, as always, yields a most satisfying...
King (Under the Dome, 2009, etc.) adds counterfactual historian to his list of occupations.
Well, not exactly: The author is really turning in a sturdy, customarily massive exercise in time travel that just happens to involve the possibility of altering history. Didn’t Star Trek tell us not to do that? Yes, but no matter: Up in his beloved Maine, which he celebrates eloquently here (“For the first time since I’d topped that rise on Route 7 and saw Dery hulking on the west bank of the Kenduskeag, I was happy”), King follows his own rules. In this romp, Jake Epping, a high-school English teacher (vintage King, that detail), slowly comes to see the opportunity to alter the fate of a friend who, in one reality, is hale and hearty but in another dying of cancer, no thanks to a lifetime of puffing unfiltered cigarettes. Epping discovers a time portal tucked away in a storeroom—don’t ask why there—and zips back to 1958, where not just his friend but practically everyone including the family pets smokes: “I unrolled my window to get away from the cigarette smog a little and watched a different world roll by.” A different world indeed: In this one, Jake, a sort of sad sack back in Reality 1, finds love and a new identity in Reality 2. Not just that, but he now sees an opportunity to unmake the past by inserting himself into some ugly business involving Lee Harvey Oswald, Jack Ruby, various representatives of the military-industrial-intelligence complex and JFK in Dallas in the fall of 1963. It would be spoiling things to reveal how things turn out; suffice it to say that any change in Reality 2 will produce a change in Reality 1, not to mention that Oswald may have been a patsy, just as he claimed—or maybe not. King’s vision of one outcome of the Kennedy assassination plot reminds us of what might have been—that is, almost certainly a better present than the one in which we’re all actually living. “If you want to know what political extremism can lead to,” warns King in an afterword, “look at the Zapruder film.”
Though his scenarios aren’t always plausible in strictest terms, King’s imagination, as always, yields a most satisfying yarn.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-4516-2728-2
Page Count: 864
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: Sept. 27, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2011
Lamer than usual. Has the formula at last run thin enough to keep Baldacci off the bestseller list?
Murders, kidnappings, international conspiracies, internecine warfare between alphabet agencies, mad scientists and, oh yes, buried treasure, as Baldacci pours it on.
Michelle Maxwell and Sean King, once of the Secret Service, but now, reductively, P.I.s chasing the industrial security buck, return in Baldacci’s 13th (The Collectors, 2006, etc.) to face a sea of troubles. For one thing, Michelle may be cracking up. We know this because in the opening scene she ventures into exactly the wrong Washington D.C. bar and picks a fight with exactly the wrong Neanderthal. She’s almost killed, which, it turns out, might well have been the aim of the game. Instantly, Sean nudges her into a “facility” where she can be restored to mental health by world-class though unconventional psychologist Horatio Barnes, Sean’s old friend. (We know how far from hidebound he is because he wears jeans and black t-shirts and drives a Harley.) Restoring Michelle to mental health does not come cheap, so Sean takes on a gig that connects him to a certain high-powered and mysterious enclave in Virginia called Babbage Town. Baggage Town is high-powered because the scientists who work on its behalf are super bright, and it’s mysterious because no one really knows what they’re working on—except that a breakthrough could bring “the world as we know it to a screeching halt.” There, Sean finds the adorable Viggie, an 11-year-old girl genius (mathematics) who is targeted by various nasty types attempting to exploit her. Soon the customary battle ensues. Fortunately, Michelle recovers sufficient mental health to blow the facility and resume the partnership, arriving in time to earn again the thanks of a grateful…make that world.
Lamer than usual. Has the formula at last run thin enough to keep Baldacci off the bestseller list?Pub Date: April 24, 2007
ISBN: 978-0-446-58034-2
Page Count: 421
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2007
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