A Plan to Kill

Homicide detective Toby Malzoni made a drug-related kill in the first few pages of the book. He and his partner, Jeff Clayton, effectively covered it up as a JJ (their own euphemism) and buried the records.

They were surprised to be assigned to an intelligence anti-terrorism unit. They are given several excuses why two homicide detectives were selected over officers with more intelligence experience. It worried them that somebody upstairs had discovered their personal practice of killing narcotics dealers and to keep from embarrassing the department, chose this way to stop it.

Toby and Jeff did a JJ only after they had hard evidence that the dealer was selling drugs to children and would probably walk, if brought to trial at all. The detectives selected the letters JJ because they had acted as judge and jury. Fear that they could be indicted made them afraid to protest the new assignment, so they complied quietly.

The story continues with a foreign country planning to manufacture explosives from materials readily available on the domestic market in the USA and using them for terrorist activities. The simplicity of the operation made it difficult to identify the people involved. The foreign country cleverly used people they had planted in the US years earlier and who were working in the system as professionals, putting them above suspicion. The terrorists had an elaborate plan to use the explosives in a national attack to disrupt the country.

The plan unfolds as the story develops and moves rapidly along. Toby and Jeff engaged the terrorists in several graphic adventures along the way. This book is scary because similar terrorists attacks could easily happen here.