The Chameleon: A Jake Palmer Novel

The hostility between Pakistan and India, both nuclear armed and on the verge of war, provides the backdrop for McManus’s solid fourth Jake Palmer novel (after Libido’s Twist). After rotating through the CIA and the NSA, Jake joins the Joint Special Operations Command as an independent contractor committed to a two-year hitch as a member of a secret group known as Task Force Orange. He’s assigned to the U.S. embassy in Islamabad, where he and partner Alona Green have the job of keeping watch on the security of Pakistan’s nukes. An asset tells Jake and Alona a legendary terrorist known as the Chameleon is going to try and steal one of the weapons, and eventually nuclear weapons do go missing. Meanwhile, back in London, Jake’s love interest, Fiona Collins, who works for MI6, stumbles onto a situation that will prove instrumental to the resolution of the stolen nuclear weapon mystery. The plot of this by-the-numbers, stolen nuke procedural marches steadily forward amid plenty of action. Military espionage fans will want to check out Jake Palmer if they haven’t already. (Self-published)