Pirate Alley

Naval aviator Jake Grafton joins forces with CIA operative Tommy Carmellini, the hero of his own series (The Disciple, etc.), in bestseller Coonts’s 11th Jake Grafton thriller (after 2003’s Liberty), a can’t-put-it-down plunge into the fast-growing Somali pirates subgenre. A team of pirates, led by ruthless, brutal Mustafa al-Said, who works for warlord Sheikh Ragnar, seizes the 850-passenger cruise ship Sultan of the Seas after a hard chase. American forces under the command of Adm. Toad Tarkington aboard Chosin Reservoir, an amphibious assault ship, are ready to intervene, but they operate under constraints. Politicians far away control the action and may in the end pay the pirates’ ransom. After the liner is taken to the port of Eyl, Somalia, and the passengers are locked up in an old fortress, Grafton and Carmellini put boots on the ground and face down the bad guys with the help of SEALs, Force Recon, and other military units. This is a stomach-clenching nail-biter that will leave readers exhausted and satisfied that justice—very rough justice—has been served. Agent: Deborah C. Grosvenor, Grosvenor Literary Agency. (May)