Sunday, December 30, 2012

The Intercept – Dick Wolf (William Morrow)


Osama Bin Laden is dead…terror lives on.

Dick Wolf is the creative force behind one of the longest running television brands in the history of the box of light, the Law and Order series; so it should come to no one’s surprise that he has crafted one of the year’s best thrillers with his first foray into novels.

Wolf sets the story in motion with fits of stops and starts to lay the foundation, the cornerstone being the takedown of Bin laden and the treasure trove of secrets left behind in his compound. Ripped from today’s headlines is Wolf’s calling card and plays it to maximum effect here.

One of the terror mastermind’s final mandates is that future operations not be based on past glories. So when a would be Jihadist tries to take over the cockpit of an international flight in-bound for LaGuardia Airport only to be stopped by a Flight 93 style passenger take down; red flags start waving for the Intel folks charged with preventing terror attacks.

Wolf perfectly captures not only the inner workings of the anti-terror types, but he is spot on in his take on how the media create instant celebrity with his story line on the passengers involved with putting a stop to the terrorist. Wolfs adds just the right amount of high profile reality players like New York Mayor Bloomberg and President Obama to keep the story real world relevant.

Wolf’s lead character, NYPD Intel unit officer, Jeremy Fisk brings the right level of obsession to the story of the hunt for the “real” terrorist. Fisk gets cover billing with the subtitle “A Jeremy Fisk Novel” so here’s hoping Wolf is planning to serve up another long-running series. Based on this first salvo, he’s off to a great start.

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