The Phalanx Code

Tata’s lackluster third Garrett Sinclair thriller finds the lieutenant general incarcerated in Fort Leavenworth after the events of 2023’s Total Empire. Early on, Garrett receives an unexpected pardon from U.S. president Kim Campbell, but he’s liberated by Jake Mahegan, his former colleague on the secretive Dagger team, before official channels can reach him. The rest of the Dagger team gathers in Wyoming at the underground complex of billionaire tech mogul Mitch Drewson, who warns Garrett that his business rival, Aurelius Blanc, is on the cusp of establishing a technofascist “global security state.” Coding savant Misha Constance and French cryptologist Evelyn Champollion attempt to break Blanc’s Phalanx Code, an encrypted “kill list” of Garrett’s inner circle, as he contends with a series of explosive family revelations. The action, usually a strength of the series, is often flat and remote, much of it viewed by Garrett on a screen. A series of increasingly outlandish, logic-defying twists only make matters worse. This disappoints. Agent: Scott Miller, Trident Media Group. (Feb.)