Malefactors seeking fresh ideas for wreaking havoc or simply wanting to get information on advanced weaponry would find this jet-fueled tale from veteran Huston (Balance of Power, etc.) cataloguing the best of both. Lt. Kent "Rat" Rathman, legendary SEAL and the finest Special Forces warrior in America, must capture feared terrorist Wahamed Duar, "perhaps the most hated man in the world." Rat runs the deadly Duar to ground, but in the process has to torture one of Duar's gang in Sudan to flush the head terrorist from a secret hiding place. The torture victim later dies, thus bringing the book to its central question: is the use of torture ever justified? Back in the U.S., Rat is arrested for breaking one of the laws of the Geneva Convention and put on trial, just as Duar is captured and brought before a U.S. military tribunal. Tough guy Rat handles all of these legal distractions and still has time for romance with his girlfriend, navy doctor Andrea Ash, who last appeared in Huston's The Shadows of Power. The action crests in a ferocious battle aboard a hijacked natural gas tanker loaded with nuclear material and headed at top speed into the Chesapeake Bay. The plot is ripped from the pages of tomorrow's newspapers, the military action is authentic, the legal scenes believable and the political lectures easily ignored. Action adventure readers who like a little John Grisham tossed into the mix will lock and load on this one. (May 27)
Forecast:Continued war interest, particularly in the Special Forces area, will push this book onto bestseller lists, like Huston's previous Rat Rathman novels.
