Alden decimated the intelligence community, including Horvath's department, when he took office. Horvath initially declines to visit with the President. However, patriotism ultimately prevails and he meets with President Alden and media mogul Stephanie Gallo. His mission is to kidnap the terrorist Mustafa Khan, held captive by the Afghans. Horvath is to act in an unofficial capacity and to subsequently exchange Khan for Gallo's daughter who was kidnapped by a rival Taliban leader and his Russian aide.

Meanwhile, Elise Campbell, a Secret Service agent assigned to the President, overhears a conversation between President Alden and Stephanie Gallo which infers the president's complicity in an East Hampton car accident. While driving drunk, the President's media consultant drove her car into another vehicle killing a family of four. Elise meets first with a detective in the Hamptons and discovers that the parents of the victims were paid off by Gallo and then with the business partner of the deceased who provides further insight that there was more to this case.

This latest Scot Horvath novel doesn't measure up to the earlier books. Lackluster and predictable, it seems to have little significant connection between the plot lines and lacks both character development and the exciting suspense readers have to come to expect in the Horvath series. It actually seemed more a vehicle to bash the current administration. Here's hoping the next Scot Horvath book will be more what readers have come to expect from Brad Thor.

--Jerry Solot