 |
FBI trainer Angie Carpenter is drugged and abducted by hired goons on behalf of a clandestine network. Taken to a private island, she's tortured and killed. Under interrogation, she betrays the name of former soldier and freelance agent Dale Lipinski, who now assists the FBI in a private capacity. Dale is targeted for assassination. A missile destroys a car he was assumed to be driving. In reality, the car was carrying his lover, Lei. Employing all the intelligence resources at his disposal, Dale embarks on a quest for revenge with global scope. To this end, he enlists the services of several talented individuals: Ari Isakov, a Mossad agent; Kurt Sanger, a friend who specializes in abductions; Toy Namo, a Seattle-based undercover female investigator; and a woman named Katla whose love for him burns hot. Dale's journey places him in the crosshairs of Pentago, a secretive Chicago-based espionage organization, and Skryty, a consortium of terrorists and spies who aren't afraid to get their hands bloody.
Meanwhile, the American presidential election looms. An unscrupulous former businessman is back on the ticket, threatening to place his billionaire lackey, an electric car manufacturer, in charge of eviscerating the federal workforce. Infiltrating a high-level meeting with a secret camera, Lipinski meets some of the oligarchs who are keen on restoring this man to office so they can enact their own hidden agenda. Winning the election easily, the former businessman announces an ambitious program that immediately vindicates the worst fears of his critics: attempting to annex Canada and Greenland, dismantling essential services, and imposing tariffs that disrupt global trade and send consumer prices soaring.
De Haro is a very competent professional writer, and half the joy of this book lies in the excellence it demonstrates within its chosen genre. The plot doesn't seem to have been so much written as engineered, trundling along with a machine-like efficiency and encompassing such reliable staples of the political thriller as drug cartels, nefarious syndicates, dangerous extractions, industrial espionage, and enhanced interrogation. The pace never flags, with one event following on the heels of another so rapidly that first-time readers may struggle to keep track of all the names and organizations mentioned. Luckily, an appended character list mitigates this somewhat.
Such attention to the demands of the plot comes at the expense of the characters, who are given very little personality and possess only a glimmer of interior lives. Still, very few readers will miss the obvious similarities in backgrounds and actions between some of the characters and real-life politicians and businessmen, which will allow them to fill in any gaps in their backstories. Where De Haro truly excels, however, is in delivering wish fulfillment. Lipinski is an avatar of the reader's most delirious daydreams: skilled in intelligence-gathering and weaponry, at ease among the rich and powerful, and beloved (and fought over) by many women. He's athletic, ruggedly handsome, and well-connected. He has a knack for disguises that may remind discerning readers of Gene Parmesan or Philip Jennings. This is the work of an experienced author, one whose command of prose, pacing, and story structure makes it a standout in the thriller genre.