cover image The Traitor's Contract

The Traitor's Contract

Paul Mann. Knightsbridge Pub. Co., $19.95 (0pp) ISBN 978-1-56129-021-5

Jack Halloran has masterminded high-risk, secret, government-deniable operations against Arab terrorists for 30 years. Now his longtime targets have hired a rogue element of the IRA to settle the score: they want Halloran killed and his organization wiped out. The novel, third in a series ( The Libyan Contract ), smoothly introduces new readers to the storyline and the principal characters. Halloran; his right-hand man, Colin Lynch; and IRA assassin Brian Hennessey are convincing in their roles. Mann has a refreshingly clear sense of the ideas and idioms of Irish revolutionary politics. But The Traitor's Contract is most successful in its nonstop action. While high-tech gadgets play a role, the novel is not a pure techno-thriller. Most of the violence is direct and personal. It begins with a spectacular helicopter attack on a New York skyscraper, ends with a raid on a terrorist hideout in Donegal, and in between leaves a wide trail of imaginatively slain corpses. While not for the squeamish, this fast-moving yarn will appeal to those who believe adventure-fiction antagonists should see the whites of one another's eyes. 50,000 first printing, $40,000 ad/promo. (Feb.)