If Green was as obvious on the football field as he is in the writing of his latest thriller (after The Letter of the Law), his NFL career would have been a lot shorter. The first clue to what's going on in this story about a former Secret Service agent trying to investigate and avenge the death of his son comes early on, followed almost immediately by three more thuddingly obvious markers. Any chance they will prove to be red herrings quickly disappears: they are all exactly what they seem to be. Too bad, because the basic premise is sound and promising: Kurt Ford, former Secret Service agent and successful computer entrepreneur, knows his beloved son, Collin, better than anyone, and is ready to stake his life on the certainty that Collin—an able and ambitious Secret Service agent himself—would never commit suicide, as the Washington, D.C., police have concluded. So when a former rival within the Treasury Department, David Claiborne, contacts Kurt secretly and tells him that two other Secret Service agents have also died under mysterious circumstances, it's definitely possible that all three agents witnessed something they shouldn't have when they accompanied the president to a clandestine meeting at a Maryland farmhouse. As Kurt uses his own experience to plan a private vendetta, fans of Green's previous books might hope for—and certainly deserve—a few more plot twists and a much more interesting resolution. Instead, they are served up an all too predictable finale. 3-city author tour. (Feb. 4)
