PURSUIT OF HONOUR

In deepest Iowa, three Al-Qaeda terrorists are hiding out, following a deadly attack in Washington which killed nearly 200 people. They have isolated themselves deliberately to avoid being tracked down, and are planning their next strike, safe in the knowledge that nobody knows where they are.

Mitch Rapp and Mike Nash, members of an elite counter-terrorism team, know that the men are out there somewhere, but they have almost no information to go on, and are desperate for a lead. But that’s not their only problem; they also face enemies from within the influential Washington establishment, including the Inspector General of the CIA, who wants to expose what he regards as the team’s brutal and coarse methods. In effect, he wants to rein in the men who go out daily and put their necks on the line to protect America against its most deadly foes.

A much closer worry for Rapp is that Mike Nash is showing serious signs of burn-out – that condition which not only makes a man question what he is doing, but threatens to expose himself and his colleagues if he should lose operational effectiveness. Part of Nash’s problem is that he seems to have becoming disillusioned by the rigors and demands of risking his life and never knowing if he will return safely to his family.

Vince Flynn paints a highly convincing picture of the two sides of the Washington scene – the political and the military – and their differing stances in the war against terror. He doesn’t neglect to portray the frightening intensity with which the terrorists also approach their task, and their uncompromising belief in what they are doing… but he also opens up the conditions which might make one of them to have cause to waver in their intended actions.

While at heart this is a powerful, exciting, race-against-time novel with plenty of action, it also explores the self-doubts on all sides and the narrowness of the line dividing success or failure, no matter which side you are on.