UNSEEN

A police officer’s investigation into a string of murders uncovers a terrorist conspiracy in this political thriller.

Higgins structures his novel as an inevitable confrontation between Malachi Wolf, a Washington, D.C., police officerinvestigating a series of deaths,and Austin,an ex-soldier–turned–revenge killer after his lover’s murder by an Afghan National Army soldier in Afghanistan. Austin and Malachi come off as offbeat characters thanks to the author’s attention to their backstories and relationships: Austin dotes on his rescue dog, Sophie, and Malachi left graduate school for law enforcement after his father died in the Boston Marathon bombing; the latter then developed multiple sclerosis. Higgins amplifies the connection between Malachi and Austin—specifically, their reactions to the murders of loved ones by extremist violence—by developing secondary characters’ histories. For example, Malachi’s older partner, Detective Thomas Jones, “seemed to want Malachi to carry on his legacy,” and Dr. Zahra Mansour, an expert in Middle East studies and Malachi’s lover, discusses her past as a student in Egypt within the context of fundamental Islamic politics. Zahra also introduces Malachi to the Brotherhood, an Islamic extremist group that finances attempts “to infiltrate and subvert Western civilization” by influencing “curriculum in elementary and high schools…subvert[ing] large swaths of the media.” Higgins’ tactic of pitting Malachi against multiple adversaries adds to the novel’s sense of urgency, as does his vivid, harsh prose; Malachi’s “conversion from civilian to cop…had happened overnight, like having an epiphany…or a stroke.” Sometimes, though, the author’s passionate dialogue can be somewhat unwieldy: “It’s a calling, an internal need to fight evil, an impulse to protect.”

An often engaging novel with surprising characters.