The Network: A Jack Logan Thriller

Investigative journalist Jack Logan, the hero of this uneven series launch from the pseudonymous Shaw (Lynne Constantine, coauthor with her sister of The Last Mrs. Parrish under the name Liv Constantine), is in his East Village apartment when Sen. Malcolm Phillips appears with a wild story about how he will soon be murdered. He wants Jack to give a packet of information to his wife, Taylor, about a plot to take over the U.S. Jack, who was once Taylor’s fiancé, jumps at the chance to reconnect. After Malcolm is poisoned, Jack and Taylor go on the run. Meanwhile, megalomaniac Damon Crosse, the director of a research facility known as the Institute, has selected medical student Maya to bear his child. Cue the Nazis and the 30 pieces of silver Judas received for betraying Jesus, and the plot becomes a mash-up of Dan Brown tropes held together with romantic prose (“The stirrings of desire fluttered as she remembered the feel of those strong arms”). Romance readers with a taste for action thrillers will best appreciate this one. Agent: Bernadette Baker-Baughman, Victoria Sanders & Assoc. (Dec.)