Independence Day

Compelling characters, a wealth of technical detail, and ticking-clock suspense make bestseller Coes’s fifth Dewey Andreas novel (after 2013’s Eye for an Eye) one of the year’s best thrillers. CIA director Hector Calibrisi draws the ex-Delta operative turned CIA agent back into action from Dewey’s hometown of Castine, Maine, where he retreated after the death of his fiancée six months earlier. Dewey winds up searching for a genius Russian computer hacker, Pyotr Vargarin (aka Cloud), who’s acquired a nuclear weapon and is bent on wreaking revenge for earlier ill treatment at American hands. Cloud has hacked his way into the CIA computer system and is always one step ahead as bodies pile up and Dewey goes off the grid to save the U.S. The attack is scheduled for the Fourth of July, which gives Dewey and his comrades only a few days to stop Cloud. Last-minute twists ratchet up the tension as the book races to the final confrontation. [em]100,000-copy first printing. Agent: Nicole James, Chalberg & Sussman. (May) [/em]