IMMINENT THREAT

Reunited firmly on the side of truth, justice, and the American way, a crack father-and-daughter anti-terrorist team and their mates square off against a conspiracy aimed at assassination on a grand scale.

Twenty years ago, Jacobslav Scarvan’s colleagues in Russia’s FSB plotted to kill him on a boat in the Aegean Sea. Escaping them (though not their bullets) and swimming to shore, he was nursed back to health by Father Spiros, a monk whose millennialist dreams helped him change Scarvan’s loyalties while pumping up the volume on his violence. Now Scarvan, groomed and ready, is hell-bent on ushering in the second coming by killing as many heads of state as possible in one fell swoop. Rumors that Scarvan’s returned from the dead lead James Hawthorn, director of the Alpha Team, to shift Scott Roberts—now cleared of the charges of treason that led his daughter, ex-Marine Mara Roberts, to hunt him down in Silent Threat (2018)—along with Mara herself and the rest of the Alphas away from the pursuit of Omega, the global conspiracy the team was formed to annihilate, and focus on Scarvan instead. For an operator who’s been out of action for two decades, the 71-year-old Scarvan is surprisingly quick on his feet, and his plans to attack his targets as they’re assembled at a landmark New York location are alarmingly plausible. Gunhus supercharges his unlikely premise with efficient scenes of run-up killings, revelations of infiltration and betrayal, and a brace of climactic surprises, one of them saved for the very last line.

If you’re in the mood for high-stakes international intrigue, here’s a perfect specimen. Sleep well.