When we last met former SEAL James Reece in The Terminal List, his family had been murdered, his team slaughtered, and he had been
diagnosed with a brain tumor brought on by a drug company’s product that was
designed to cure PTSD. His fit of rage resulted in the death of the
company’s CEO, the Congressman who pushed the product for their own financial
benefit, and more than a few Pentagon brass. The last Senator to die owned an
ocean-going sailboat that Reece used to escape the US. Most of the US
intelligence agencies were trying to find Reece.
True Believers picks up with Reece in the Atlantic (most of
the first 100 pages are about his solo voyage). It takes him months to sail
from the US, across the Atlantic, around Africa to Mozambique where he scuttles
the ship. On foot, be crosses deep into the bush to a safari guide whom he
knows via his best friend from college and the SEALs, Raife. At the Niassi Game
Preserve, he learns the ways of the professional guides, becoming well accepted
by those who work there. Their job is to take guests on safaris into the bush
and also to weed out poachers.
They stumble across a group of poachers. In the ensuing gunplay,
Solomon, one of the guides, is severely wounded. Reece uses his knowledge
of battlefield medicine and gets him to the closest clinic. Little does he know
that one of the doctors is a contact for British intelligence. Doesn’t take
long for Reece’s description and abilities to filter back to Langley.
It’s been months since Reece left the US to go off the grid.
Until a former SEAL-turned CIA contractor shows up. Being an international fugitive,
Reece thinks his former friend is there to take him in. But Freddy has an
offer that is based on some events that Reece has missed since he hasn’t seen a
newspaper in months.
Terrorists ravaged a London shopping district when it was
packed with Christmas shoppers. Hundreds killed, thousands wounded. The retiring
NATO chief is assassinated in front of his wife when an RPG tears apart his
parked car. Other coordinated attacks signal something ever bigger is coming. Western stock markets have been
rocked worse than after 9/11. Chatter collected by the NSF points to Mo, an Iraqi protégé of Reece’s who
appears to have been turned and radicalized. Freddy makes Reece an offer: find Mo, find out
who’s behind this sequence of events and why . . . in exchange for all his offenses being
wiped clean.
So, find Mo, who asks why his being looked for. He is still
working for a CIA contractor and both are under CIA control, at least as far as Mo knows. Then find Mo’s
controller and up the chain to a former GRU colonel who wants Mother Russia
returned to her rightful place at the top of the food chain, and get rich along
the way by shorting the stock markets.
Quite an array of culprits. The former GRU colonel who is at
odds with current Russian president. This colonel runs a huge charitable
foundation and has half of Congress in his pocket, meaning considerable political clout and consequences should his mission be curtailed. Then there is that rogue CIA
ground branch sadist who continues to run agents, Mo included, who think they still
are working for the CIA. Behind the
scenes is a CIA Russia analyst on the run in order to stand at the side of the Colonel’s
triumphant return to Moscow. Can’t forget about a Syrian general with ties to
Assad who is brokering weapons and mercenaries to the highest bidder. In this case, snipers, weapons, and enough chemical-based WMD to make 9/11 look like a picnic. All being
tracked down by a disgraced but deadly SEAL on the run accompanied by his equally deadly friend.
This is a BIG story with more layers than I can count. One
might not expect such a complex set of circumstances to be so expertly assembled
by an author in only his second novel. But Jack Carr shows a maturity of plot,
character, and presentation normally seen only in the most mature and
experienced of writers. I’d suggest you read The Terminal List first to get a
grasp on the rage that boils inside of Reece. True Believers then shows you how
Reece focuses that rage into this epic hunt. And based on how the plot develops,
I am sure we will be seeing a #3 in the James Reece series next year.
And surprise. It’s published by Emily Bestler Books. As I’ve said many
times on this blog. Every book I’ve read out of Emily Bestler books is a top
drawer, first rate, winner. This one included. Continued kudos to Emily Bestler Books.
ECD
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