The Widow’s Strike: A Pike Logan Thriller

Terrorists seek to cause mass devastation using a virus as a bio-weapon in bestseller Taylor’s entertaining fourth Pike Logan thriller (after Enemy of Mine). The job of thwarting the terrorists falls to Grolier Recovery Services, a company Logan has set up to be independent of Taskforce, a technically “illegal” counterterrorist unit of the U.S. government. Logan’s group traces an Iranian general, Malik Musavi, who’s trying to acquire the virus, to Thailand, where one of their own, an agent known as Knuckles, has been imprisoned after an operation to tap into a police database. Musavi hopes to use a Chechen’s fury at the West to persuade her to infect herself with the disease and then pass the plague on to others. While genre fans will find much that’s familiar (Logan continues to struggle with his feelings toward attractive series regular Jennifer Cahill), clever plotting and solid prose set this above many similar military action novels. Agent: John Talbot, Talbot Fortune Agency. (July)