Critical Mass

June 1, 1992
The author of Crossfire sets his fast-paced new thriller in motion with an exciting scenario: an embittered Hiroshima survivor's attempt to explode nuclear devices in San Francisco and Los Angeles on the anniversaries of the two atomic bomb attacks that ended WW II. In Paris, former CIA assassin Kirk McGarvey sees his lover's plane shot down by a Stinger missile fired by a team of East German assassins in the employ of madman Isowa Makkamura. Seeking revenge, McGarvey begins to pick up Makkamura's trail after a brutal killing in Tokyo, but the East Germans kidnap his ex-wife and daughter to throw him off the track. The bloody effort to rescue the two women obscures the main plot line for a while, but McGarvey eventually confronts Makkamura in Tokyo, then joins him on a deadly flight across the Pacific before the book's final crisis, which is resolved only in the final sentence. McGarvey may be a little too superhuman--and the villains too evil by half--to be believed, but tension never lags in this certified page-turner.

May 15, 1992
The cold war may have iced over, but the age of the terrorist still offers job opportunities for larger-than-life CIA assassins like Kirk McGarvey. The novel's opening flashback introduces Isowa Nakkamura in 1945, as an American warplane is dropping the atomic bomb on Japan. Following the death of family and relatives in the Hiroshima and Nagasaki holocausts, Nakkamura bides his time and builds his fortune, intent on extracting revenge. Manipulating millions of dollars and a group of hard-line ex-STASI (East German Intelligence) agents, Nakkamura plans to set off nuclear devices in San Francisco and Los Angeles on the anniversary dates of the original attack. Drawn into the conspiracy by chance when a woman friend is killed during a Stinger missile downing of an airliner, McGarvey soon finds himself deep in the shadow world of international nuclear terrorism. Hagberg's characters are somewhat artificial, but in a high-action thriller, it's the plot that really counts, and there aren't any shortfalls in that department. ((Reviewed May 15, 1992))(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 1992, American Library Association.)