Hunting Season

Part action novel, part spy thriller, this explosive tour de force follows the adventures of aging superspy Edwin Kreiss, retired under a cloud, who sets Agency blood boiling when he steps out on his own to find his kidnapped college student daughter, Lynn, after the FBI stops looking. Rookie agent Janet Carter is informed of the spy's dark past, warned off when she digs for info, then ordered by creepy Agency and Justice drones with ulterior motives to keep tabs on Kreiss. Kreiss finds Lynn's cap near the Ramsey Arsenal, a dangerous mothballed toxic chemical complex in dense woods near Roanoke, and it's just a matter of time until he locates her captor, a fanatic who is making a bomb at the complex, intending to blow up ATF HQ in D.C. and avenge his son's death at Waco. Janet leads agents to the complex, but an explosion sends her to the hospital along with Lynn, who is pulled out of the rubble. The women flee the hospital, barely eluding Misty, a deadly female CIA assassin bent on grabbing Lynn in an attempt to settle an Agency score with Kreiss. The author exceeds his near-perfect Train Man with this ripped-from-the-headlines plot pitting a middle-aged Rambo with a small but deadly arsenal of spy gadgets against spine-chilling villains, corrupt Agency brass and powerful political forces. Deutermann never sounds a wrong note in this nonstop page-turner. (Mar. 19) Forecast: An excerpt from Hunting Season in the mass market edition of Train Man (St. Martin's, Mar.) will alert Deutermann's fans to the new book, while the novel's anti-government slant should satisfy their and other readers' seemingly insatiable appetite for tales of Washington corrupton. Expect vigorous sales; audio rights have been sold to Brilliance.