Thou Shall Not Kill

Leifer pulls out all the stops in his pulse-pounding third thriller featuring Cmdr. John Hart (after 2018’s 8 Seconds to Midnight). A former Navy SEAL, Hart now serves as President Jonathan Conner’s “go-to person in emergencies.” During Conner’s administration, the U.S. has already been hit twice in major terror attacks—by a bioweapon that killed thousands and a nuke detonated in New York. When a coalition including Syria, Iran, Russia, Hamas, and Hezbollah launches attacks on Israel, the Israeli government fears that the coordinated assaults pose a threat to their country’s existence and considers the deployment of nuclear weapons in response. Hart persuades the Israeli prime minister that taking that extreme step is premature, and works frantically to devise a different strategy, one that places him in harm’s way in Iran. Leifer makes the behind-closed-doors discussions plausible as the action builds to a nail-biter of a cliffhanger. Tom Clancy fans will appreciate Leifer’s ingenuity in coupling suspense with a believable near-future scenario. (BookLife)