Killing State

While serving with the British army in Afghanistan, Michael North, the hero of O’Reilly’s pulse-pounding series kickoff, was shot in the head by a sniper, and the bullet that remains lodged in his brain could prove fatal at any moment. North finds meaning in whatever time he has left working as a master assassin for the Board, an “arms-length, extra-judicial, government agency,” founded by Elizabeth I’s spymaster, Sir Francis Walsingham. North’s latest target is Honor Jones, a young and gorgeous Tory MP who has been deemed an extreme security risk. When he catches up with her in a London park, he’s flummoxed to find her waiting for him. In their subsequent conversation, he’s unsettled by Jones’s belief that she’s in the crosshairs because of her search for a missing friend, astronomer Peggy Boland. By deciding to spare her life, North joins her at the top of the Board’s most wanted list. O’Reilly adds depth to the suspenseful plot line with a plausible speculation of the repercussions of a Trump administration’s decision to slash military aid to the U.K. Readers will look forward to North’s next adventure. [em](BookLife) [/em]