Flashpoint

Despite a compelling revenge-fantasy story line, Aellen's ( Redeye ) thriller remains oddly unengaging. After wealthy Connecticut divorcee Katherine Cahill loses her three young children in the bombing of an airliner by Islamic extremists, she is propelled on a vengeful search that will bring her face to face with terrorist leader Imad Tayib. Katherine gets to Tayib's Syrian headquarters by offering to pay the ransom for a kidnapped American oil driller, taking along the man's wife and Sam Gaddis, an Arabic-speaking, hard-drinking photographer whose personal problems with the local CIA operative render him more of a hindrance than a help. The final confrontation is adequately bloody and exciting, but a startling decision by Katherine seems poorly motivated and ends the book on a disconcerting note. Since Aellen fails to fully evoke the anger and anguish that drive his characters, the reader is kept all too aware of the improbabilities and coincidences of the plot. In the last analysis, it is solely the heartless terrorist Tayib who lingers in the mind, if only because he remains absolutely true to his character from start to finish. (May)