The Island

In bestseller Coes’s far-fetched and overstuffed ninth Dewey Andreas thriller (after 2018’s Bloody Sunday), Iranian Zakaria Mansour, the “commander general of Hezbollah,” has an ambitious plan: to assassinate the U.S. president during a speech at the United Nations, slaughter thousands in the New York City streets, and electronically destroy the Federal Reserve. But first he’ll kill CIA operative Andreas in retaliation for derailing Iran’s nuclear bomb procurement in an earlier book. Andreas, who easily foils the assassins sent to get him, is conveniently on a yacht in New York Harbor when the terrorists detonate bombs in the four tunnels into the city; they calculate the bridges will be jammed with people fleeing the island. Mansour leads several brigades of elite soldiers to attack UN headquarters, while hundreds of sleeper agents begin massacring civilians. A missile strike on the UN leaves the president as the apparent sole survivor. While Andreas attempts a rescue, two CIA agents concoct an unconvincing plan to stop the Federal Reserve attack. Coes breezes past the near-impossible logistics of the missions, ignoring logic, physics, and the passage of time. Series fans may still enjoy the no-brakes, turn-off-your-brain plot. Agent: Nicole James, Chalberg & Sussman. (Aug.)