Warning Order: A Search and Destroy Thriller

Hood’s rousing sequel to 2015’s Clear by Fire pits disgraced Special Forces operative Mason Kane against Abu al Qatar, the CIA’s only asset in Syria, who (unbeknownst to his CIA handlers) has sworn to destroy America to avenge his brother’s death. When a Special Forces friend of Mason’s, Mick Boland, walks into a fatal trap in Syria, Mason assembles his trusted team—including sniper Grinch, medic Blaine, and soldier Renee, Mason’s girlfriend—for an unauthorized mission to Syria to take out Mick’s killers. Meanwhile, high-level U.S. government officials manipulate the military, and Mason and his crew in particular, for reasons of misplaced patriotism. Hood leans heavily on melodrama and clichéd prose (“Cage’s jaw muscles rippled as he absorbed the warning”), but he writes terrific battle scenes. Fans of military action thrillers will relish the climactic final battle between Mason and company and their well-armed adversaries at an abandoned American air base in Mosul. Agent: Bob Diforio, D4EO Literary Agency. (July)