"Exhilarating political suspense thriller"

The first person executed is South Carolina Republican Senator Frederick Wallace, an extreme right wing politician. The crime scene is clean and the kill is professional. The next victim is right wing radio talk show host Van Vandervelt whose car explodes. The killer attains official serial status when conservative TV commentator Tim Brennan is poisoned. The republicans, borrowing a page from Senator Clinton, blame the murders on a vast left-wing conspiracy to destroy the United States. Of course politics must be included so they tie the killers to President William Henry Lee IV.

First Lady Katharine Rule Lee as the CIA director leads a thorough search for clues and any ties besides extreme right wing beliefs of the victims. The usual left wing suspects fail to pass the test as clever killers. Leads are almost non-existent though Her Majesty's Military Intelligence believes there is a link to a radical British group. Ed Rawls, in jail for treason, offers the identity of the murderer in exchange for a full pardon and a million dollars. Pondering deals with the devil and who will be next, Katharine and FBI agent Robert Kinney must find a way to stop these left wing terrorist assassinations.

Though quite exciting, readers will have to accept several premises such as the First Lady remaining as CIA director, etc. The story line is fast-paced, but requires loads of acceptance that events play out the way they do in the plot. Still Stuart Woods provides an exhilarating political suspense thriller that if one belies reality will still find pleasurable.

Harriet Klausner

Reviewed by Harriet Klausner
Posted September 10, 2003

Summary

Someone is out to kill the nation's high-level politicos in this electrifying new thriller in the bestselling Will Lee series. Will Lee, the courageous and uncompromising senator from Georgia, is back -- now as President of the United States, in this fifth book of the New York Times bestselling series. When a prominent conservative politician is killed inside his lakeside cabin, authorities have no suspect in sight. Then two more seemingly isolated deaths-achieved by very different means-are feared to be linked to the same murderer. With the help of his CIA director wife, Kate Rule Lee, Will is thrust in the middle of the deadly game to catch the most clever and professional of killers before he can strike again. From a quiet D.C. suburb to the corridors of power to a deserted island hideaway in Maine, Will, Kate, and the FBI track their man and set a trap with extreme caution and care-and await the most dangerous kind of quarry, a killer with a cause to die for.