Any Minute Now

Bestseller Lustbader (The Testament) skillfully blends supernatural horror with a gripping military thriller. When an operation in Pakistan goes wrong for Red Rover, a black-op private security team handling the dirtiest of wet work for the NSA, squad leader Greg Whitman makes it his rogue mission to complete the assignment, despite interference from his superiors, as well as from the Alchemists, an occultist cadre bent on world domination. Whitman turns to a former lover, Charlize “Charlie” Daou, to be the team’s armorer; her unorthodox weaponry is an enjoyable change from the usual munitions in such fiction. Felix Orteño, his communications and electronics expert, however, proves to be as much a liability as an asset in the operation. The action builds to a tense showdown with Preach Desmortiers, a bayou shaman who once shepherded Whitman’s own mystical powers, at the Well, the arcane subterranean facility where Whitman formerly practiced the black art of torture and interrogation for the Alchemists. Agent: Henry Morrison, Henry Morrison, Inc. (Aug.)