Amazon.com Product Description (ISBN 0312369735, Hardcover)
Following A Deeper Sleep, her most successful Kate Shugak novel to date, the Edgar Award winner and New York Times bestselling thriller writer Dana Stabenow delivers a nail-biting, all-too-real novel of international suspense.
A terrorist with a most personal grudge, an FBI analyst challenged to be three steps ahead of the intelligence, a Coast Guard captain assigned to keep watch on that very American of symbols from the water, an astronaut who takes her job very seriously—the paths of all of these characters converge on one clear morning in Florida. NASA is preparing to launch the space shuttle, this time with a high-paying visitor on board as a guest, and the FBI and the Coast Guard are doing everything they can to help the launch go off without a hitch. But one Pakistani man with a bottomless personal grudge and the commitment of many zealous men behind him is determined to strike back at the most visible target he can find.
Once again Dana Stabenow, who researched this gripping scenario by spending weeks living on board a Coast Guard cutter as it conducted its mission in the eastern Pacific, delivers an action-driven thriller with an ingenious, frightening, straight-from-the-headlines plot, certain to be her next bestseller.
(retrieved from Amazon Fri, 24 Apr 2009 07:58:18 -0400)
This book is not part of that series. In fact, it is quite different. I find this one to be more of a thriller with 3 separate story lines: the story of a bitter young middle eastern man determined to teach the U.S. a lesson, a female astronaut preparing to live her dream on her first shuttle launch, and a coast guard captain with political ties tasked with security detail for the launch. We also follow the CIA as they hunt for a terrorist cell across the globe.
The story starts slowly and builds to an exciting climax. The main characters are well defined, and as the plot lines converge we understand just how much that moment means to each one of them. I found this to be an interesting and satisfying read. (