Field of Valor

In Betley’s rousing third Logan West thriller (after 2017’s Oath of Honor), West, the former Marine Force Recon platoon commander who heads the supersecret Task Force Ares, continues his fight against the secret cabal known as the Organization. In an ironic twist, shipping magnate Constantine Krawcyk-Kallas, the Organization’s founder, asks West to help him root out and destroy a rogue element in his cabal. Someone within Kallas’s inner circle, against his orders, has been orchestrating attacks against the United States in an effort to destabilize relations between the U.S. and China. Betley resorts to the usual genre tropes—a global organization that wants to bring down the U.S. government, friends who turn out to be enemies, turncoats at the highest levels of government—but his battle scenes, both in flashback and in the present, are tense and often shocking. They more than compensate for the constant banter and inane internal dialogue during quieter moments. Military action fans will be satisfied. Agent: Will Roberts, Gernert Co. (May)