National Security

Cameron’s testosterone-fueled debut thriller features characters straight out of central casting, most notably Capt. Jericho Quinn, an agent of the Air Force Office of Special Investigations, and Sheikh Husseini al Farooq, a terrorist mastermind the equal of bin Laden. A massive mall bombing in Colorado is a mere prelude to a planned biological attack that could decimate the U.S. Quinn and Marine Gunnery Sgt. Jacques Thibodaux, who team for a daring rescue of American captives in Iraq, are later recruited by Winfield Palmer, the national intelligence director, to serve as his “hammer.” With sexy Dr. Megan Mahoney of the Centers for Disease Control providing brains and beauty, the trio have to locate and stop three messengers of death carrying vials of a deadly airborne hemorrhagic virus. Quinn, with his part Apache ancestry, fluency in Arabic and Mandarin Chinese, and military skills, makes a formidable warrior readers will want to see more of. (Nov.)