A TIME FOR WAR

Conservative radio host turned man of action Jack Hatfield, still fuming over having had his popular tell-it-like-it-is radio show dropped after liberals branded him as an extremist, goes up against traitorous American billionaires and their government partners who have sold game-changing systems-disabling technology to the Chinese.

Savage, who has gotten into trouble himself for making inflammatory comments on his highly rated show, The Savage Nation, casts a wider net than he did in his best-selling first thriller, Abuse of Power (2011). In that book, Hatfield, a former war correspondent working as a freelance news producer, saved his hometown of San Francisco from a deadly conspiracy in which the British (who had banned him) were involved. This time, he's out to expose plans for a secret war on America that will disarm the military and kill scores of innocents with a lethal toxin. He teams with Dover Griffith, a former journalist who now uses her investigative sixth sense as an officer at the Office of Naval Intelligence. Along with Maggie Yu, a grocer's daughter with advanced skills in kung fu, they're up against a wily and determined foe: Sammo Yang, a Chinese national passing as an attaché who has a serious vendetta against the U.S. and is prepared to do anything to carry it out. Savage, author of numerous nonfiction books, isn't at all shy about using Hatfield to advance his self-image as a teller of truths liberals find too painful to digest. This book is not likely to draw much interest from the MSNBC crowd. But the story unfolds crisply and efficiently, if not with all that much suspense. And Savage portrays Hatfield's circle of friends and supporters with affection.

Who says radio hosts are all talk? In Savage's cool-tempered thriller, hero Jack Hatfield uncovers a Chinese plot and saves the nation.