Edgar-winner Gores (Cases
) will satisfy action junkies with this fast-paced, suspenseful stand-alone, though not everyone will find suspending disbelief an easy matter. The impending inauguration of near-future U.S. President Gustave Wallberg is clouded by a threat from a man previously thought dead, Hal Corwin. According to the administration, Corwin, a Vietnam veteran and expert marksman, brutally murdered his own daughter, and Wallberg's closest advisers decide that their best chance of thwarting an assassination attempt is to find Corwin's benevolent doppelgänger in the person of Brendan Thorne, a younger man with similar skills. Despite some flimsy plotting (e.g., wounded characters are assumed dead by their adversaries), Gores artfully shifts perspective between the hunter and the hunted as the alleged assassin moves closer to his target and Thorne finds he can't trust his closest allies. (Oct.)
