Landslide

Former Marine Sikes (cowriter, Open Skies: My Life as Afghanistan’s First Female Pilot with Niloofar Rahmani) makes his fiction debut with a strong series launch. When former Marine officer Mason Hackett, a combat veteran now working for a London global financial firm, sees the picture on TV of a freelance journalist kidnapped in Ukraine, he’s startled to recognize his former best friend and brother-in-arms, Kevin Gomez, who he believed was killed in action in Iraq 15 years earlier. Mason soon receives an email from Gomez (“If you’re getting this, it means something has gone wrong and I need your help”), asking him to contact Doug Mitchell, a CIA operative. From Mitchell, Mason learns Gomez’s death was faked for his entry into an ultra-secret division of the CIA, but Mitchell has no intention of trying to rescue Gomez. Haunted by his own past sins as a warrior, Mason resolves to ransom his friend’s freedom. Mason’s plans can feel half-baked, but luckily there’s always a new contact with a better one. Sikes imbues the emotionally complex Mason with a palpable sense of grief. Readers will look forward to his further adventures. Agents: Judy Coppage, Coppage Co., and Samuel Dorrance, Rising Tide Literary. (Sept.)