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.

Ben Coes – The Last Refuge (St. Martins Press)

After reading The Last Refuge, I have to ask: Is it time to add the name Dewey Andreas to the list of tough, patriotic operators that include Scot Harvath and Mitch Rapp?

Andreas is the creation of author Ben Coes, a guy who would clearly fit in nicely with the likes of Brad Thor and Vince Flynn the creators of Harvath and Rapp. Coes works the street corner where politics and terrorism intersect.

While Coes comes from the political side of that equation, having served as a speechwriter during the Reagan and George H W Bush administrations and as Mitt Romney’s campaign manager during his successful run for Massachusetts Governor, he clearly grasps the danger that terrorists pose to liberty.

Andreas is your classic, self-reliant, rules be damned hero who cuts his own path in taking out the bad guys. The Last Refuge takes on a ripped from today’s headlines quality, with the storyline of Iran developing a nuclear weapon that it plans to smuggle into Israel.

The Last Refuge, moves at a blistering, race the clock pace as Andreas moves through exotic locales, crosses paths with characters who are most comfortable working the underbelly of the world, as he tries to thread the needle of not only derailing Iran’s plot to destroy Israel, but to free his friend, a Mossad agent from an Iranian prison.

Along the way clueless politicians and bureaucrats attempt to put roadblocks in Andreas’ way, all in the name of political considerations. All in all it adds up to a fun read and the hope that somewhere out there is a guy like Andreas looking out for us.