The hero of Black
(2004) returns to star in a thriller plot that's pretty familiar, but which becomes steadily more absorbing through understated treatment and well-done incidentals. Jeremy Waller, a dedicated family man and FBI special agent, is on his way back from Indonesia, where he was rooting out terrorists with a lethal sidekick known as G.I. Jane, when a fleet of terrorist planes attacks not only Washington but a handful of other American cities. Could American fundamentalists be in league with Islamic terrorists? Such speculation is only the tip of the cabalistic iceberg as Waller infiltrates a shadow arm of the Christian Identity movement called the Phineas Priesthood. Black
's Senator Elizabeth Beechum is back, a political veteran with questionable ties to big business, as vice president; she and naïve, skittish new President David Ray Venable clash repeatedly. Whitcomb, a 15-year veteran of the FBI, is dead-on with the tech talk and introduces a slew of tight plot lines and characters (time line location headings help) before bringing everything together complexly and believably. Agent, Suzanne Gluck
. 6-city author tour
. (July)
