THE TITAN PROTOCOL

In this cloak-and-dagger novel, a military catastrophe is explored from the multiple perspectives of characters whose professional lives intersect.

A team of American special forces soldiers raids a weapons cache held in Nigeria by Boko Haram, the militant Islamic group, and the operation goes terribly wrong. A massive explosion kills 14 American soldiers, the result of a targeted strike by a weaponized drone produced by the Chinese. Scott panoramically portrays the fallout of that debacle from the varying viewpoints of several characters—all in some way participants in the shadowy world of covert military operations. Isaac Northe is a former Marine and the best friend of Jimmy Taylor, one of the soldiers presumed dead in the explosion. After Northe hears the news, he muses: “I’d always been under the notion that Jimmy was invincible, even immortal.” While working as a security consultant for Omniburton, a massive defense contractor, Northe discovers that the outfit was likely in control of the drone that delivered the carnage. His employer, Sarah Powers, is a former CIA spook code-named Athena. She hails from Project Olympus, the same elite program that trained Naomi Kaufman, the CIA agent who was in Nigeria when the mission went south, and Marissa Diaz, an assassin currently on a lethal assignment for her client, a Swiss bank. The author deftly keeps the nuanced intricacy of the plot impressively lucid, and the shifts in perspective paint an intelligent perch from which to assess the wages of nihilistic corruption. Furthermore, Scott furnishes a striking peek into the shadowy corridors of espionage, one paradoxically characterized by both the bonds of soldierly loyalty and moral indifference. The plot can feel a touch familiar—the principal weaknesses of the novel are a general lack of originality and a preponderance of the genre’s clichés. And while the author’s writing style is unimpeachably clear, it is otherwise plain. Nevertheless, for readers in search of a thoughtfully composed spy thriller, this book is an attractive option.

A fast-paced espionage tale brimming with action and smartly constructed.