Into the gray zone

Pike Logan and his Taskforce team are asked by the CIA to provide security for a clandestine meeting between the U.S. intelligence agency and India's foreign intelligence service discussing the Chinese monopoly on the mining of rare-earth elements. When the meeting is disrupted by a terrorist attack, it feels to Pike like the first strike in what appears to be a plot to destroy the fragile peace between superpowers. Only Pike and his team can stop the terrorists--if they can find them before it's too late. The 19th Logan thriller delivers exactly what fans have come to expect: action, suspense, pyrotechnics, and a pace that drives readers through the story, offering them few opportunities to take a pause and catch their breath. There is a formulaic aspect to the Logan novels, but that's just fine: it's a good formula, and it works. Taylor, who spent two decades in the American military, brings a level of realism to the stories, too, that can only come from first-hand experience. Highly recommendable.

In Taylor's competent latest adventure for counterterrorist agent Pike Logan (after Dead Man's Hand), CIA director Kerry Bostwick asks Logan and his cohorts to provide security for a sensitive meeting in Goa, India. A reluctant Pike is assured that it will be a simple job; series fans know that means he and his friends on the Taskforce will soon be hip-deep in dead bodies. Pike joins his wife, Jennifer; Navy SEAL Knuckles; Marine Brett; and Air Force combat controller Veep in Goa to oversee negotiations between Indian billionaire Riva Thakkar and CIA officials hoping to mine rare earth minerals recently discovered in the region, with hopes of breaking a Chinese monopoly. Thakkar's involvement has put him in the sights of Chinese spy Mr. Chin, who orchestrates the billionaire's kidnapping in hopes it might derail the deal. Doing Chin's bidding is a small group of Sikh separatists in over their heads, against whom Pike and company square off. The plot is overcomplicated, even for Taylor, but when it comes to scenes of derring-do, he delivers the goods. Series fans will get just what they came for. Agent: John Talbot, Talbot Fortune Agency. (Apr.)