Cold Harbor: The Gibson Vaughn Series

In FitzSimmons’s action-packed third Gibson Vaughn thriller (after 2016’s Poisonfeather), Gibson, a talented computer hacker, is a prisoner at a CIA black site, where he’s kept alone in a windowless cell with bright lights perpetually shining and no sound; he eats “the same tasteless bars, processed beyond recognition, for every meal.” After 18 months, and with no explanation, his captors drop him off at a West Virginia airfield. Desperate to be reunited with his nine-year-old daughter, Ellie, Gibson rushes to the home he used to share with his ex-wife and Ellie only to find it burned to the ground. Because his abduction to the black site coincided with the arson of the house, the local authorities regard Gibson as the primary suspect in the crime. Plagued by the madness into which he descended during his captivity, Gibson carries on conversations, sometimes to tedious excess, with his deceased father and sister as he seeks to exact revenge on the person responsible for his incarceration. Still, fans of deep, dark government conspiracies will keep turning the pages to see how it all turns out. Agent: David Hale Smith, Inkwell Management. (Oct.)