Fatal Conceit

When the body of Lt. Gen. Sam Allen, the acting director of the CIA, turns up dead in a boutique hotel just off Times Square, Roger “Butch” Karp investigates, in Tanenbaum’s provocative 26th legal thriller featuring the New York County DA (after 2013’s Tragic). Eight days earlier, terrorists attacked a supposed U.S. trade mission in Chechnya, killing innocent people and seizing Karp’s daughter, Lucy, a member of a secret antiterrorism group. Did agents of the current administration silence Allen to prevent the truth about the attack from going public? Butch and his family form a “team to confront, combat, and defeat evil,” determined to find out. Meanwhile, sleazebag Rod Fauhomme, the American president’s reelection campaign manager, is up to his fat neck in dangerous intrigues that grow to include several murders. Those outraged by how the government handled the 2012 debacle in Benghazi will find a lot to like. Agent: Bob Diforio, D4EO Literary Agency. (Aug.)