The Widow's Strike

May 20, 2013
Terrorists seek to cause mass devastation using a virus as a bio-weapon in bestseller Taylor’s entertaining fourth Pike Logan thriller (after Enemy of Mine). The job of thwarting the terrorists falls to Grolier Recovery Services, a company Logan has set up to be independent of Taskforce, a technically “illegal” counterterrorist unit of the U.S. government. Logan’s group traces an Iranian general, Malik Musavi, who’s trying to acquire the virus, to Thailand, where one of their own, an agent known as Knuckles, has been imprisoned after an operation to tap into a police database. Musavi hopes to use a Chechen’s fury at the West to persuade her to infect herself with the disease and then pass the plague on to others. While genre fans will find much that’s familiar (Logan continues to struggle with his feelings toward attractive series regular Jennifer Cahill), clever plotting and solid prose set this above many similar military action novels. Agent: John Talbot, Talbot Fortune Agency.

June 1, 2013
Taylor's latest Pike Logan thriller. A lab technician dies a quick and ugly death after exposure to an experimental virus. Nefarious Iranian forces get their hands on both the limited supply and its preventive vaccine, with the goal of reshaping humankind. Their plan is to inoculate Iranians and kill off the rest of humanity. To this end, they recruit a Chechen woman--a "Black Widow"--who is willing to martyr herself by taking the virus to the infidels. Along the way, Pike is surrounded by obstacles ranging from a fearsome antagonist to obstructive colleagues. Alongside him is tough-as-steel Jennifer Cahill. Their friendship is more than platonic and less than sexual. After surviving rough setbacks, Pike faces the ultimate challenge on his way to saving the civilized world. The themes of Islam and terrorism are timely, and Taylor does not burden the reader with technical descriptions of military hardware. The pace is quick, with plenty of point-of-view switches to show what the bad guys are up to. Don your hazmat suit, prop up your feet, and enjoy a good yarn.

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July 1, 2013

The premise of Taylor's latest thriller (All Necessary Force; Enemy of Mine; One Rough Man) is simple: Iranian bad guys want to release the virus that caused the influenza pandemic of 1918. The carrier will be a Chechen widow who hates the United States. If Logan and his cohorts from the Taskforce (an off-the-books group created to solve problems without having to get authorization from Congress or the courts) don't stop her, the death toll could run into the millions. VERDICT Taylor writes a tight, exciting script. Fans of the previous Pike Logan books will be delighted, while newcomers will be pleased to make Pike Logan's violent acquaintance. Although this title draws heavily on its predecessors, reading them is not essential to newbies. And while the idea of a unit like the Taskforce is not original (see Tom Clancy's Campus among others), there is plenty of solid military and scientific tech and a ton of action here. [See Prepub Alert, 1/14/13.]--Robert Conroy, Warren, MI

Copyright 2013 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

June 1, 2013
The fourth novel in the Pike Logan series starts with an intense mission, and the relentless pace does not let up until the end. A few members of Logan's task force are working in Thailand on an information extraction, and one of the team is captured and thrown into prison. The U.S. president is reluctant to use diplomatic means to retrieve their asset, so Logan and his associate Jennifer head to Thailand to break their colleague out of prison. The operation leads to someone who has access to a deadly virus, and the person designated to carry the disease is on the loose. Taylor, whose background in Special Forces gives his work undeniable authenticity, delivers another exciting thriller that the covert-ops crowd will relish. Get this one into the hands of Vince Flynn fans.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)