The Death Factory

At the start of Domenici's unexceptional sequel to Bringing Back the Dead, Jim Simpson, a former U.S. Army Ranger now working for a military contractor in Iraq, goes on the run after he realizes his employer is out to get him. Jim gets only as far as a room down the hall, where he manages to fire off two e-mails, one to his father and one to his wife, before co-workers grab him. Jim's father, who works at the Pentagon, persuades Fred Custer, a paralyzed Vietnam Special Forces vet, to organize a rescue mission, which Custer does by gathering much of the same gang he commanded in Bringing Back the Dead. Chapters alternate between Custer's assembling the team and Jim's ordeal at a torture prison in Egypt known as the Death Factory. The action is so straightforward that readers will long for some sort of twist or surprise. A blatant political message at the end cools what little heat the author has managed to generate. (Aug.)