The Operative
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3.4 • 7 Ratings
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- $6.99
Publisher Description
An ex-CIA agent hunts down a terrorist conspiracy in a thriller by the New York Times bestselling author who “may well give Tom Clancy a run for the money” (St. Louis Post-Dispatch).
After more than a decade on the front lines of the war on terror, Ryan Kealey is finally putting danger behind him. But his calm is shattered by a merciless attack during a charity gala in downtown Baltimore. Among the dozens of casualties is the wife of CIA Deputy Director John Harper. With normal channels of investigation obstructed, Harper turns to 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 innermost chambers of government to the dimmest reaches of the human psyche, forced to match wits with a new nemesis aided by new allies, each with a unique agenda. Slowly, Kealey unspools an unimaginable conspiracy that suggests America may truly be its own worst enemy.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
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.
