THE BILLIONAIRE'S CONSPIRACY

An American operative seeks to stop a coup, even as members of his team are being hunted, in Javani’s third series thriller.

Early in this novel, the author introduces three major plotlines in rapid succession. First, a group of anarchists attacks Fort Belvoir in Virginia, killing an Army specialist before grabbing a weapons stash. Next, readers are taken to a Virginia hospital where Janusz Soltani, a member of an underground intelligence team called Unit 81, is visiting a colleague injured in a different attack; he vows to hunt down those responsible, who may be Russian or Iranian operatives. Finally, San Francisco–based billionaire Octavio Souza is shown to be plotting a revolution by staging a protest in Washington; his scheme aims to create chaos in the Oval Office and, eventually, a new U.S. Constitution. Unit 81 is charged with keeping this coup from happening. In the tradition of Robert Ludlum and Vince Flynn, Javani has created a compelling hero in Soltani, and Souza makes for a worthy adversary, as both are intelligent and committed to their respective causes. They eventually come face to face in a tense, violent meeting in a luxury hotel. The various plotline intertwine in a frequently compelling read, though its complex political machinations and various twists and turns make it a bit arduous at times. Still, all the threads do tie together in the end, even if it does take a little while to get there. The author has created some engaging three-dimensional secondary characters; however, a few, including anarchist killers known as Destruction and Hazard, lack nuance. The writing can be surprising, as when the end comes for one of Javani’s major characters: “ ‘Say hello to Destruction when you see him,’ the lowlife said before plunging the kni—.” That’s how the sentence concludes, midplunge—and there are enough clever moments like that to keep the momentum going, making for a diverting, if sometimes meandering, tale.

An entertaining, if sometimes-slow, spy novel featuring a compelling hero.