cover image Executive Intent

Executive Intent

Dale Brown, . . Morrow, $26.99 (416pp) ISBN 978-0-06-156085-9

China and Russia pursue newly aggressive policies in hot spots like Somalia and Yemen that threaten the U.S. in this exciting near-future political thriller from bestseller Brown (Rogue Forces ). Kenneth Phoenix, the U.S. vice president, finds himself at odds with Joseph Gardner, the cautious U.S. president, who's inclined to cancel a space weapon system, which includes a precision-guided artificial meteorite, in favor of negotiating treaties to abolish space-based weapons. Characters from past Brown books, like Lt. Gen. Patrick McLanahan (ret.) and Lt. Col. Jason Richter, play key roles as the U.S. faces growing crises at sea and in space. Congress scarcely exists. Techno-thriller fans will enjoy the detailed descriptions of cutting-edge technologies as they morph into action sequences (“The sabots hit the Earth traveling almost two miles a second, each with the force of a two-thousand-pound high-explosive bomb, creating a crater large enough to fit a jumbo jet within it”). (May)