The Last Refuge

Readers fond of unrealistic bravado and female intelligence operatives with outstanding physical assets will best appreciate Coes’s third Dewey Andreas novel (after 2011’s Coup d’Etat). The events of the previous book, in which former Delta Force member Andreas helped depose the president of Pakistan, shape a predictable effort to stop Iran from nuking Israel. Andreas must not only avert nuclear war in the Middle East but also somehow rescue kidnap victim Kohl Meir (a great-grandson of Israeli PM Golda Meir), who saved Andreas’s life in Pakistan, from a well-guarded prison in Iran. Steamy if stock exposition (e.g., “He looked at her panties, with their thin lace edges, then Jessica’s stomach, toned but not muscular, with the tiniest bit of voluptuous curve, above it her big breasts, the nape of her neck, finally her eyes, which still held the same contemptuous stare”) makes up only in part for the lack of genuinely suspenseful moments or surprises. 100,000 first printing. Agent: Nicole James, the Aaron M. Priest Literary Agency. (July)