Danger Close

May 24, 2010
Boykin, a retired lieutenant general and founding member of the Delta Force, an elite special operations unit, teams up with adventure-travel author Morrissey (In High Places) for a hair-raising international military suspense thriller. Blake Kershaw goes undercover inside an al-Qaeda camp in Pakistan to foil a plot to set off a nuclear device in the United States. The novel offers a fascinating, even sympathetic look into the brotherhood behind radical terrorism while showing how an operative narrowly stays alive to thwart disaster. Blake says to his "brothers" in the terrorist cell, "My government is corrupt. We say we believe in freedom of religion, but we do not." The plot is underdeveloped compared to the amount of attention paid to the hardware of military operations, which will satisfy readers who connect guns and religion. With descriptions of the hero killing in at least three scenes, the story contains more violence than most Christian fiction, but it's a vivid portrayal of spy work and the inner workings of a terror cell.

June 15, 2010

Blake Kershaw is going to school to earn his degree while he recovers from wounds he received while serving in Afghanistan. But his college career is cut short when the army asks him to go deep undercover within al-Qaeda to avert a plot to bomb a U.S. city. The young Blake accepts the mission, changing even his physical appearance in order to infiltrate the terrorist organization. VERDICT Boykin brings his notably fundamental belief system to the forefront in his fiction debut, setting the war on terror in a Christian framework. His notoriety as the former U.S. Deputy Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence and the media controversy he stirred with remarks about the war on terror will attract readers who may not usually read in this genre. Be sure to note the fundamentalist nature of the writing to potential readers when recommending this title, which, despite the heavy-handed message, is a suspenseful page-turner.

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