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Summary
Summary
In this riveting thriller from the New York Times bestselling author of the Exile, a bloodbath on home soil launches one man into a world-spanning hunt for answers-revealing implications For The United States that are too terrible to imagine-and too real to ignore . . .
Finally settling into a peaceful life after more than a decade on the deadly front lines of the war on terror, Ryan Kealey believes he's put danger behind him-and some of his demons to rest. But his calm is shattered when he's swept into a highly organized and merciless terror attack during a charity gala in downtown Baltimore.
Dozens are dead and critically injured, including the wife of CIA Deputy Director John Harper, whose investigation of the ambush is hampered by suspicious foot-dragging from the CIA and other agencies. With normal channels obstructed, Harper turns Kealey, The one man with the resources, expertise-and freedom from government interference-to pursue the awful truth.
Following a string of secrets and violence, Kealey blazes a trail from the confines of a federal Supermax facility To The remote edge of Eastern Europe, from the innermost chambers of government and big business To The dimmest reaches of the human psyche, forced to match wits with an old foe-and a new nemesis. Slowly, Kealey unspools an unimaginable conspiracy that suggests America may in fact be its own worst enemy.
With page after page of unrelenting action and explosive revelations, The Operative blends political deception and global intrigue at their highest levels with covert psychological manipulations at their deepest and most devastating.
Reviews (3)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Breakneck pacing compensates for lackluster prose in bestseller Britton's two-fisted fifth thriller featuring ex-CIA agent Ryan Kealey (after 2010's The Exile). When a terrorist bomb kills and injures dozens at a charity gala at the Baltimore (Md.) Convention Center, including the event's keynote speaker, the wife of CIA deputy director John Harper, Harper asks Kealey to investigate. Kealey and his allies in the U.S. intelligence community soon figure out that the attack on Baltimore is but the opening salvo in a much wider plot that could lay waste to much of America. What could have been a paean to the utility of independent, borderline rogue agents becomes instead a morality tale about where unchecked idealism can lead. Britton's ultimate championing of the rule of law and its checks and balances stands out in a field overpopulated by enthusiastically brutal protagonists and overworked ticking time-bomb scenarios. Agent: John Talbot, Talbot Fortune Agency. (July) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Kirkus Review
Ex-CIA agent Ryan Kealey (The American, 2006, etc.) returns to save the world again, this time from a bunch of terrorists armed with two nuclear weapons. Britton warns you early and often that this isn't geopolitics as usual. The CIA agents who assume responsibility for wanted terrorist Yasmin Rassin, aka the Veil, in a swap with the Canadian authorities who detained her, don't fly her to Islamabad, as they told the Canadians they'd be doing, but instead spirit her off to a secret lair where hypnotherapist Dr. Ayesha Gillani can plant subtle mental suggestions in her. That unexpected detour is only a prelude to a series of bombs that explode in the Baltimore Convention Center, killing dozens and interrupting a nursing conference co-hosted by Julie Harper, whose husband, Jon, is deputy director of the CIA. As Julie lies in a coma, duly constituted representatives of diverse government agencies jockey for position. Antiquities heir Jacob Trask emerges from his usual seclusion long enough to stir the pot vigorously; the FBI's Reed Bishop duels the CIA; the FBI's assistant director and the assistant director of its New York office differ with unusual warmth about an off-the-books project; and President David Brenneman himself reactivates Kealey, who's already shown his mettle in joining Julie's old student, CIA psychotherapist Allison Dearborn, to free hostages that the Baltimore bombers took. By the time a pair of suspicious crates arrive at a New York office building, you won't trust a soul. For beneath the high body count and the equally high acronym count designed to remind you how much research the author's done is a wonderfully subversive notion: Nuclear terrorism is the logical extension of agency infighting. Don't worry about the American democratic system. As Bishop sneers to the archvillain at bay, "it always self-corrects. It was designed to do that."]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Library Journal Review
Britton died in 2008, but the author ghostwriting his novels still delivers page-turners in the style of Brad Thor and Vince Flynn. Ex-CIA agent Ryan Kealey is attending a Baltimore charity event when a terror attack wreaks havoc. Close friends and family are killed, and Kealey returns to action to stop the terrorists from striking again. It also appears that the bombers have an inside man. VERDICT Kealey is the perfect hero to root for as he gets sucked into the muck of covert ops, especially after he thought he was finished with the nasty business. Not too many surprises, but Britton's fans will still want to get their hands on this quickly. (c) Copyright 2012. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.