Point of Contact

May 22, 2017
Maden (Drone Threat and three other Troy Pierce technothrillers) bases this taut, exciting thriller—an entry in the Jack Ryan Jr. division of the Tom Clancy universe—on the seemingly mundane premise of a corporate audit. Jack Ryan Jr., partnered with forensic accountant Paul Brown, is working for Hendley Associates, a top financial analysis firm, on a study of Dalfan Technologies, a Singaporean company that former U.S. senator Weston Rhodes intends to acquire. Rhodes has a clandestine secondary mission for Paul: installing a CIA diagnostic program to sniff Dalfan’s files for potential cyber-espionage. Tight security delays Paul’s infiltration, and as the deadline nears and Rhodes becomes more agitated, Paul suspects his mission is far more sinister. The not-merely-accountants must outrace international assassins and a massive typhoon to thwart a global financial disaster. Clancy fans can rest assured that the state of the franchise is strong. Agent: David Hale Smith, Inkwell Management.

June 1, 2017
Scion of Clancy's family of all-American heroes, Jack Ryan Jr. usually goes armed as a special-ops warrior for The Campus, but this time he's equipped with a Zebra F-701 pen as Maden (Drone Threat, 2016, etc.) offers his first entry in the late master's oeuvre (Tom Clancy True Faith and Allegiance, 2016, etc.).The Campus is a supersecret unit of Hendley Associates, a private equity management company. Former U.S. Sen. Weston Rhodes has approached Hendley for help. The ex-public servant now fronts for defense contractor Marin Aerospace Systems, which wants to buy Singapore's Dalfan Technologies, making an audit necessary. Rhodes requests Hendley's ace fraud accountant, Paul Brown, and Jack Jr., trained as a financial analyst, to do the work. There's a hidden agenda, of course, linked to Rhodes' and Brown's long-ago CIA service. Behind that curtain lurks North Korea, a Bulgarian assassin, and a disloyal son. There's the lowdown on Singapore, good, bad, and monsoon season, plus a three-way fight among Dalfan's owners, the superwealthy and secretive Eurasian family Fairchild. As revealed in back-story anecdotes, Brown, who looks like a schlub, has more hidden assets than Dalfan, whose finances are suspiciously clean. In this turbocharged narrative, technology--supercomputers, smartphones, OnStar, and Google maps--gives the bad guys the plausible ability to wage economic warfare from Shanghai to the United States. On the Brave New World front, Dalfan's ready to launch Steady Stare, a solar-powered drone. Steady Stare would make the National Security Agency drool. It can see every movement of every person plus "time travel" into the past. But isn't that nothing more than the unlimited ability to rewind? With typhoons; deadly Chinese and North Korean operatives wielding bats, knives, and guns; and a weaponized thumb drive, the action reaches Clancy levels early and stays there.

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February 1, 2017

Checking out a German company for the investment firm that acts as cover for the Campus, Jack Ryan Jr. takes along back-office employee David Kraft to help run numbers and carry the bags. Unfortunately, David's secret past gets them both in trouble.

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