Ghost

September 7, 2020
Swallow’s high-octane third spy thriller featuring former MI6 agent Marc Dane (after Exile) opens in Malta, where Lex Wetherby, a hacker-for-hire, is shot dead while fleeing assassins. Marc’s employer, the Rubicon Group, which operates in part as “a private military, security and intelligence contractor,” dispatches him to Malta to investigate. Marc confirms Rubicon’s suspicion that Wetherby was targeted by the Combine, “a gathering of power brokers, industrialists and old money types who worked with the common interest of enriching themselves still further,” because he had information they wanted. Marc then travels to France, where he infiltrates the compound of media mogul Celeste Toussaint, a Combine leader. Marc and his partner, Kara Wei, end up following the trail of a possible traitor, who betrayed Marc and Rubicon, to South Korea. Meanwhile, in the U.S., the suspense rises as former Delta Force sniper Lucy Keyes aims to shut down a terrorist group run by the mysterious Madrigal before Madrigal can knock out San Francisco’s power grid. Swallow’s action scenes compel, but his detailed descriptions of technology sometimes slow the narrative. Tom Clancy fans will want to check this one out.

October 15, 2020
What an opening! A mysterious man is being chased on foot by clearly evil agents. The man on the run comes to a dead end and, instead of surrendering, launches himself into the air and is borne away by a microchute strapped to his back. So begins Swallow's third adventure featuring ex-MI6 agent Marc Dane and his sardonic partner, former Delta Force sniper Lucy Keyes. This time the two are central to a leviathan of a thriller, as their good-guy employer sends them after a gang of superhackers planning to heist secret documents whose revelations could "start a fire that will topple nations." Why the hackers want to do this is never made clear, and that vagueness takes some of the wind out of the well-done?but awfully long?battle sequences. The information delivered here is amazing, especially for nonwonks. Like the examples of the increasingly spooky powers of computers. Hackers can get into your pharmacy account and prescribe poisons, send a SWAT team to batter your house, and give you a fictitious criminal record. It's these nuggets, more than the plot, that are the novel's strength.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2020, American Library Association.)