COBALT

The United States faces destruction unless an undercover CIA agent and Team Texarkana can foil an intricately conceived conspiracy in Davis’ thriller.

The diabolical plans James Bond villains concoct to rule the world are kid stuff compared to the Great Reset, a far-reaching, decades-in-the-making plot to “take down the United States.” Who is involved? Perhaps the question should be, “who is not involved?” Spearheaded by German multi-billionaire Klaus Burger, the Great Reset is a partnership between “some disillusioned Russians and Chinese officials in prominent positions in governments and private enterprises,” in addition to “a secret underground group of carefully selected green-energy zealots” and “one of Washington, DC’s most influential and known political leaders who was at the cusp of taking power.” The Chinese discovery of cobalt in a meteorite crater has game-changing implications for energy efficiency and battery performance. This development, coupled with a covert Chinese scheme to buy “immense swaths of farmland in the US, Canada, and other countries that permitted the selling of land to foreign companies,” promises to give them control of food and energy production in those countries. “No country, not even the Americans or their allies, will be able to stop us,” Burger proclaims. Enter Team Texarkana, introduced in Davis’ Flames of Deception (2022). Tex and his elite, first-names-only team of four is black ops–funded and can be placed anywhere in the world within 18 hours. The team is dispatched into action when Mary Johnson, a deep undercover CIA agent (by way of the Culinary Institute of America; “CIA squared”) disappears, along with her sister, Janet, who has fallen into Burger’s unspeakable clutches. As in the previous installment, this sophomore outing gets much of its energy from drawing on ripped-from-the-headlines situations. The fantastical conspiracy is “out there” to the extreme and the writing is not subtle (Burger also operates a sex-trafficking ring), but the briskly paced action covers the globe from Washington, D.C., to North Korea to the Gobi Desert and Mongolia, providing the requisite escapism.

There’s “no rest for Team Texarkana” in this entertaining diversion.