Overwatch

Guggenheim’s high-energy debut thriller stars Alex Garnett as a low-level CIA attorney with a solid Washington pedigree (his dad is a presidential adviser). In the course of investigating an apparently innocuous case involving an agency operative’s divorce, Garnett stumbles onto a sinister plan to destabilize Iran and draw the country into a nuclear shootout with Israel. Before Garnett realizes what he’s blundered into, three people connected to the divorce die under mysterious circumstances, and he finds himself being tailed, then shot at. Garnett has gotten himself caught in the churning wake of the Overwatch, an organization cloaked in such darkness that not even the American president knows about it. Guggenheim, a former lawyer turned TV writer, succumbs to predictable dialogue and several formulaic devices down the stretch, but Garnett—prickly, wily, fighting to get out of his father’s shadow—will appeal to readers who appreciate an underdog. Agent: Erin Malone, WME. (Apr.)