cover image Duty Bound

Duty Bound

Leonard B. Scott. Ballantine Books, $6.99 (352pp) ISBN 978-0-345-39189-6

Special Agents Eli Tanner and Ashley Sutton are at it again in Scott's latest action thriller (Solemn Duty; Forged in Honor). To settle an old score, ex-Navy SEAL Ted Faircloud recruits two men to help him kill Cuban drug lord Carlos Mendez, but Tanner and Sutton are also hot on Mendez's trail--and in far more danger than they realize. Scott deftly weaves the story together with his usual mix of techno-military jargon and unabashed romance, and while the dialogue often lapses into stereotype ("" `I'm a bad SF sergeant with years of experience snoopin' and poopin' ""), the end result is a compulsively readable tale well worth the necessary suspension of disbelief. (July)