The President's assassin

Publishers Weekly

Plenty of believable action plus heavy doses of insider atmosphere add zest to Haig's fifth suspense thriller to feature army lawyer Sean Drummond (after 2003's Private Sector). It might be nothing like the real White House or even TV's The West Wing, but the center of American power as envisioned by Haig is a potent myth, a modern-day Arthurian Round Table serving as a source of lessons and high drama. Now part of the CIA's Office of Special Projects, Drummond is assigned to protect the president against the enemies who threaten his life. The novel opens on a powerful note with the discovery in a posh suburban Virginia house of six bullet-ridden bodies, including that of the White House chief of staff. Could there be a connection between this massacre and the $100 million bounty someone has put on the head of the U.S. president? Helped by attractive, no-nonsense FBI agent Jennifer Margold, the wise-cracking Drummond first goes after a rogue member of the White House security detail, but things are not what they seem. After some serious shooting and explosions, Drummond and Margold are still only a day away from the likely murder of the president. Haig makes us care what happens by avoiding genre clich s whenever possible and by creating much sympathy for the relatives left behind in the carnage. Agent, Luke Janklow at Janklow & Nesbit. (Feb. 23) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

The chief of staff is dead, and the President is supposed to be next. Naturally, army lawyer Sean Drummond is on the case. Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

In a sizzling thriller, JAG lawyer Sean Drummond (Private Sector, 2003, etc.) has two days to save POTUS from a mad, bad killer even smarter than Sean is. Not easy, as followers of this series well know, since Major Drummond's foxiness is world-class. But from the beginning of a skein of horrific murders, the mad, bad guy seems always to be a giant step ahead of the good guys, Sean included. First, White House of Chief of Staff Terry Belknap and his wife are annihilated in their own home, along with the four magnificently trained secret-service agents assigned to protect them. Next, the White House receives a chest-thumping message promising that the president himself is history and no force on earth can save him. Remorselessly followed by the murders of a Supreme Court justice and the chairman of the Republican National Committee, the mad, bad boast begins to take on the aspect of revealed truth. Outmaneuvered at every turn, Sean, on temporary duty with the CIA's Office of Special Projects, decides there must be a mole in the woodwork. Only that could explain the sophisticated security systems confidently breached, the ready and diabolical exploitation of habits, behavior patterns, and peccadilloes once considered intensely private. FBI Special Agent in Charge Jenny Mangold agrees with Sean, and together they root around in personnel files, on high alert for suspicious smells. They find one, or at least they think they do: a man so blinded with hate that indiscriminate slaughter appears to him nothing other than a measured response to an unhappy childhood. The good guys mount their chase. And while they do, brash, tough, iconoclastic Sean and his brainy, leggy partner try hard not to getdistracted by each other. When on his game, as he is here, the mouthy lawyer with the susceptible heart is as good as the genre offers.