THE ULTIMATUM

In Wolf's third Jeremy Fisk thriller, a sniper using a specially equipped drone is randomly killing people in New York. He promises to continue doing so until a leaker of police intelligence materials, who has been taken into custody, is released.

The classified documents, as reported in the New York Times, reveal that the NYPD's Intelligence Division is collecting information on law-abiding Muslims throughout the city. The information, leaked by one Merritt Verlyn, includes Fisk's unlisted address, which his enemies in the Mexican Cartel are happy to have. They waste no time sending a hit squad to the detective's door. On the run after escaping that threat, Fisk, whose Social Security number and date of birth were also exposed, discovers that his bank account has been emptied and his credit cards have been suspended. With a mysterious party calling himself Yodeler threatening to kill one person every day until Verlyn is released, Fisk teams up with Chay Maryland, the Times reporter who's covering the story, to track him down. Maryland is targeted herself by a young undercover Chinese intelligence officer who needs the leaked documents in her possession to penetrate the firewall of the newspaper and then that of the Department of Commerce. Wolf, creator of TV's Law & Order franchise, is in complete control. The basic outlines of the story may be familiar, but his smartly drawn characters and situations lift the novel, as do the crisp chase scenes and shootouts. And the sniper and drone elements couldn't be timelier.

Another solid thriller by Wolf, who is proving as dependable a novelist as a TV producer.