Tom Clancy’s Op-Center: Fallout

Rovin’s 19th Op-Center series entry (following 2021’s The Black Order) checks all the customary boxes, if mutedly. Things kick off after a Chinese space station destroys a manned American spacecraft, killing everyone on board, and the Op-Center, now codenamed Black Wasp, has been whittled down to five members by a multitude of enemies. The space massacre is revenge for a Black Wasp mission a year earlier in which Lt. Grace Lee abducted Yang Dayou, the chief engineer of a Chinese hypersonic missile program, and his family, and assassinated the project director. Soon, Chinese forces reduce Black Wasp’s numbers even further, and Grace endures a terrible personal blow. Readers will be pleased that the ending points to a possible new structure for the Op-Center series and a return to the exceptional action of past missions, but this feels more like a placeholder than full-bore thriller. Only Clancy diehards need apply. (May)