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Man in the Middle by Brian Haig β€” book cover

Man in the Middle

by Brian Haig
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Overview

For newly promoted Army lieutenant colonel Sean Drummond, his latest assignment starts off simply enough: find out if the death of one of D.C.'s most influential defense officials was murder or suicide. Most investigators would call it a cut-and-dried case, but nothing is ever that simple.


Teamed with Bian Tran, the attractive Army Military Police officer investigating the case, Drummond is about to embark on a journey that takes him from the labyrinthine channels of American intelligence to the killing rooms of Iraq. None of it will be more difficult than navigating the shadowy minds and motivations of his enemies and so-called colleagues.


What Drummond uncovers will make him question everything he believes in. Because the more he digs, the more he learns about the key players-American and Middle Eastern-in a war that rages bloodier every day. A war where betrayal is a daily occurrence and makes him ask: Are my loyalties to my superiors or to the American soldiers battling for their lives?

Synopsis

For newly promoted Army lieutenant colonel Sean Drummond, his latest assignment starts off simply enough: find out if the death of one of D.C.'s most influential defense officials was murder or suicide. Most investigators would call it a cut-and-dried case, but nothing is ever that simple.


Teamed with Bian Tran, the attractive Army Military Police officer investigating the case, Drummond is about to embark on a journey that takes him from the labyrinthine channels of American intelligence to the killing rooms of Iraq. None of it will be more difficult than navigating the shadowy minds and motivations of his enemies and so-called colleagues.


What Drummond uncovers will make him question everything he believes in. Because the more he digs, the more he learns about the key players-American and Middle Eastern-in a war that rages bloodier every day. A war where betrayal is a daily occurrence and makes him ask: Are my loyalties to my superiors or to the American soldiers battling for their lives?

Publishers Weekly

Despite the intention declared in an author's note to broaden Americans' understanding of the current war in Iraq, bestseller Haig (Private Sector) delivers a routine mystery thriller that awkwardly blends fact and fiction. Lt. Col. Sean Drummond, Haig's wisecracking series hero, finds himself partnered with an exotic female military police officer, Bian Tran, when Clifford Daniels, a high-ranking Defense Department official, is found dead in his Virginia apartment, an apparent suicide. The pair soon learn that Daniels was the U.S.'s main liaison with Mahmoud Charabi, an Iraqi exile who, like the real-life Ahmed Chalabi, was a leading advocate of military action to topple Saddam Hussein. The discovery that Charabi may have been in the employ of Iranian intelligence raises the stakes for the inquiry, which takes place just weeks before the 2004 presidential election. The action detours to the Iraqi war zone before the predictable windup. (Jan.) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

About the Author, Brian Haig

Brian Haig is a West Point graduate and a career military strategist. Before retiring from the Army, he served as special assistant to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He has appeared as a military analyst on both MSNBC and Fox News Channel. His articles have been published in journals ranging from the New York Times to USA TODAY to Details. The son of former Secretary of State Alexander Haig, he lives in New Jersey with his wife and four children. This is his sixth novel.

Reviews

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Editorials

The Washington Post

Haig keeps the action and wisecracks coming fast . . . He has a natural narrative gift.

Publishers Weekly

Despite the intention declared in an author's note to broaden Americans' understanding of the current war in Iraq, bestseller Haig (Private Sector) delivers a routine mystery thriller that awkwardly blends fact and fiction. Lt. Col. Sean Drummond, Haig's wisecracking series hero, finds himself partnered with an exotic female military police officer, Bian Tran, when Clifford Daniels, a high-ranking Defense Department official, is found dead in his Virginia apartment, an apparent suicide. The pair soon learn that Daniels was the U.S.'s main liaison with Mahmoud Charabi, an Iraqi exile who, like the real-life Ahmed Chalabi, was a leading advocate of military action to topple Saddam Hussein. The discovery that Charabi may have been in the employ of Iranian intelligence raises the stakes for the inquiry, which takes place just weeks before the 2004 presidential election. The action detours to the Iraqi war zone before the predictable windup. (Jan.) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

It's just as long-suffering and insufferable U.S. Army lawyer Sean Drummond is finally promoted that his real troubles begin. Drummond, the protagonist of Haig's previous novels (e.g., Private Sector), is called on to investigate the kinky death of an influential defense official. Was it suicide or murder? If it was murder, is there a cover-up? And does the case involve events leading up to the Iraq war? Aided by an attractive female army officer of Vietnamese descent, Drummond starts to unravel a complex plot that leads to Baghdad and concerns people very high up in the government who desperately want Drummond stopped. Haig's novels always feature excellent writing, smart dialog, interesting characters, intriguing and often Byzantine plots, and lots of action, and this book is no exception. Everyone is out to get or discredit Drummond, who's always underestimated. A marvelously twisted plot and marvelously twisted characters help along a tale in which Drummond actually gets to act a little human. Great entertainment; highly recommended. [Prepub Alert LJ, 9/15/06.]-Robert Conroy, Warren, MI Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

A quiet little murder drags a JAG lawyer into a dirty war. In a shabby Washington, D.C., apartment, newly promoted Lieutenant Colonel Sean Drummond (The President's Assassin, 2005, etc.) stares down at the naked, dead body of one Clifton Daniels. He has questions. Not so much about the gun-shot corpse (those will come later), but about why he, Drummond, should be bearing witness. Instructed to serve temporarily with the CIA, he's been dispatched to the apartment by Phyllis Carney, his enigmatic boss, with typically cryptic instructions-amounting, in effect, to no instructions at all. The presence of the attractive Major Bian Tran, military police, provides a degree of balm, but Drummond can't shake the feeling that his strings are being pulled and that whoever's pulling them doesn't have his best interests at heart. Well, he's right about that. It turns out that the defunct Mr. Daniels had a dark side, and that powerful people at home and abroad might not exactly regret his silencing. It's all very mysterious and unsettling, and when Drummond, suddenly partnered with Bian, finds himself on a plane headed for Iraq, it's with a continued sense of being manipulated. The actual mission, though, at least on the face of it, seems straightforward: Kidnap a certain al-Qaeda moneyman, and wring from him-the hard way, if necessary-the vital information in his possession. Straightforward, yes, but daunting, even for the redoubtable Drummond, a man who spent five years in Special Ops before becoming a lawyer. Bullets whiz by, bodies fall, and then, at mission's end, more questions-about his sphinx-like boss, about the mercurial Bian and, most difficult of all for Drummond, those really sticky onesconcerning moral relativity. Unnecessary chattiness adds about a hundred pages that this pretty good novel didn't need.

Book Details

Published
August 1, 2009
Publisher
Grand Central Publishing
Pages
688
Format
Mass Market Paperback
ISBN
9780446616676

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