- Thor, Brad.
Use of Force.
New York: Atria Books, 2017.
ISBN 978-1-4767-8939-2.
-
This is the seventeenth novel in the author's
Scot
Harvath series, which began with
The Lions of Lucerne (October 2010).
As this book begins, Scot Harvath, operative for the Carlton
Group, a private outfit that does “the jobs the CIA won't
do” is under cover at the Burning Man festival in the
Black Rock Desert of Nevada. He and his team are tracking a
terrorist thought to be conducting advance surveillance for
attacks within the U.S. Only as the operation unfolds does he
realise he's walked into the middle of a mass casualty attack
already in progress. He manages to disable his target, but
another suicide bomber detonates in a crowded area, with many
dead and injured.
Meanwhile, following the capsizing of a boat smuggling
“migrants” into Sicily, the body of a
much-wanted and long-sought terrorist chemist, known to
be researching chemical and biological weapons of mass
destruction, is fished out of the Mediterranean. Why
would he, after flying under the radar for years in
the Near East and Maghreb, be heading to Europe? The
CIA reports, “Over the last several months, we've
been picking up chatter about an impending series of
attacks, culminating in something very big, somewhere in
Europe” … “We think that whatever
he was planning, it's ready to go operational.”
With no leads other than knowledge from a few survivors of
the sinking that the boat sailed from Libya and the name of
the migrant smuggler who arranged their passage, Harvath
sets off under cover to that country to try to find who
arranged the chemist's passage and his intended destination
in Europe. Accompanied by his pick-up team from Burning
Man (given the urgency, there wasn't time to recruit one
more familiar with the region), Harvath begins, in his
unsubtle way, to locate the smuggler and find out what
he knows. Unfortunately, as is so often the case in such
operations, there is somebody else with the team who
doesn't figure in its official roster—a fellow named
Murphy.
Libya is chaotic and dangerous enough under any circumstances,
but when you whack the hornets' nest, things can get very
exciting in short order, and not in a good way. Harvath
and his team find themselves in a mad chase and shoot-out,
and having to summon assets which aren't supposed to be
there, in order to survive.
Meanwhile, another savage terrorist attack in Europe has
confirmed the urgency of the threat and that more are likely
to come. And back in the imperial capital, intrigue within
the CIA seems aimed at targeting Harvath's boss and
the head of the operation. Is it connected somehow? It's
time to deploy the diminutive super-hacker Nicholas and
one of the CIA's most secret and dangerous computer security
exploits in a honeypot operation to track down the source of
the compromise.
If it weren't bad enough being chased by Libyan militias while
trying to unravel an ISIS terror plot, Harvath soon finds
himself in the lair of the Calabrian Mafia, and being thwarted at
every turn by civil servants insisting he play by the rules when
confronting those who make their own rules. Finally, multiple
clues begin to limn the outline of the final attack, and it is
dire indeed. Harvath must make an improbable and uneasy
alliance to confront it.
The pacing of the book is somewhat odd. There is a tremendous
amount of shoot-’em-up action in the middle, but as the
conclusion approaches and the ultimate threat must be
dealt with, it's as if the author felt himself running
out of typewriter ribbon (anybody remember what that was?)
and having to wind things up in just a few pages. Were I his
editor, I'd have suggested trimming some of the detail in
the middle and making the finale more suspenseful. But
then, what do I know? Brad Thor has sold nearly fifteen
million books, and I haven't. This is a perfectly workable
thriller which will keep you turning the pages, but I didn't
find it as compelling as some of his earlier novels. The
attention to detail and accuracy are, as one has come to
expect, superb. You don't need to have read any of the
earlier books in the series to enjoy this one; what
few details you need to know are artfully mentioned in
passing.
The next installment in the Scot Harvath saga,
Spymaster, will be
published in July, 2018.
May 2018 