cover image The Consultant

The Consultant

Tj O’Connor. Oceanview, $16 trade paper (432p) ISBN 978-1-60809-283-3

After 15 years without contact, CIA consultant Jon Hunter, the hero of this exciting series launch from O’Connor (New Sins for Old Scores), receives a letter from his older brother, Kevin, asking him to come home to Winchester, Va. On arrival in Winchester, Jon has to dodge a few bullets before finding his estranged brother lying on the east bank of the Shenadoah River, mortally wounded. Before Kevin dies, he slips Jon a piece of paper with a partial address, which leads Jon to a house in Manassas. When Jon spots two men—one white, the other a “dark-skinned young man”—leaving the house, he follows their car to a nearby mall, where the latter sets off a bomb, which kills and injures many people. In his effort to find his brother’s killers and thwart a terrorist plot led by someone named Khalifah, Jon is helped and sometimes hindered by local police, the FBI, Joint Terrorism Task Force members, and his CIA mentor, Oscar LaRue. Thriller fans who value fast-paced action over character development will be satisfied. [em]Agent: Kimberley Cameron, Kimberley Cameron & Associates. (May) [/em]