Foreign Agent by Brad Thor

Hasn't been a good couple weeks for the US. A black ops team in Syria waits for the mission go-ahead, but gets ambushed by ISIS. The small motorcade carrying the US SecDef in Turkey is taken out. Then a suicide bomber dashes through the gates to the White House and detonates just outside the north portico.

The black team was to kidnap an ISIS HVT. The intel came from a Muslim doctor in Amsterdam that Scot Harvath had cultivated. But Harvath was played. The doc was also funneling info to Russia. Thus, Harvath feels it's his fault the team was slaughtered. But how did the info get from Russia to ISIS?

Neither Russia nor the US has any love for ISIS. Muslims from the former Soviet republics are joining ISIS in droves, learn how to fight, then come back to bring revolution to Russian soil. But the Russians also have a problem with geography. They have no deep warm water port for their navy, but they do have a deal with the current Syrian government, the one ISIS is trying to overthrow. If ISIS wins, their port is gone. If the current regime remains, they are good. Russia really doesn't want to go toe to toe with ISIS, but maybe if they can trick the US into thinking ISIS has upped the ante, then the US will take out ISIS, the current Syrian government will remain, and Russia will keep its warm water port.

Harvath doesn't like it that he was tricked and starts to trace backwards from his informer and up the chain to find out just how deeply Russia is really involved. The White House has given Harvath the OK to do what's necessary - that means the gloves are entirely off. Do what you gotta do because public pressure in the US is building.

Don't know how Thor does it, but with each book, he ramps up the intensity and risk with an entirely believable plot. Harvath is every bit as resourceful as Mitch Rapp, Jack Ryan, John Wells, Jack Reacher, etc. etc. etc. This was a spectacularly fast read that'll have your heart racing at each new turn. A day or two at most.

Now if only some producer will bring Harvath to the big screen or one of those 6-part series so popular on TV now. There is an audience. Oh, yes . . . there is a big audience.

ECD