Guest Review: The Insider Threat

Summary: In the eighth action-packed thriller in the New York Times bestselling Pike Logan series, ISIS, the most maniacal terrorist organization the modern world has ever seen, is poised to make their most audacious strike yet.

The United States has anticipated and averted countless attacks from terrorist groups—thanks in large part to the extralegal counterterrorist unit known as the Taskforce. But in The Insider Threat, a much more insidious evil is about to shatter the false sense of safety surrounding civilized nations. While world powers combat ISIS on the battlefield, a different threat is set in motion by the group—one that can’t be defeated by an airstrike. Off the radar of every Western intelligence organization, able to penetrate America or any European state, they intend to commit an act of unimaginable barbarity. Only Pike Logan and the Taskforce stand in the way of an attack no one anticipates, a grand deception that will wreak unthinkable chaos and reverberate throughout the Western world. -- Dutton

Booking Pap Pap is back! He's had a busy summer filled with lots of travel, but he's still managed to read a few books. The latest one is the thriller THE INSIDER THREAT by Brad Taylor. Here are his thoughts:

THE INSIDER THREAT by Brad Taylor is his eighth book featuring Pike Logan. Logan is the team leader of a secret American counterterrorism unit called the Taskforce.

After seeing a video of four non-Arabic American Jihadists beheading several ISIS captives, a U.S. government agency assigns Pike and the Taskforce the job of preventing one of the greatest fears of American intelligence – the possibility of American Jihadists bringing their terror and hatred back home. Four Americans, known as the Lost Boys, who escaped from a Florida detention center and supposedly joined ISIS, are front and center in the investigation. Logan’s team joins forces with an Israeli team to determine if the stories about the Lost Boys are real, and if so, when and where they are planning to attack. What they find is a planned attack so barbaric and terrifying that it must be stopped.

THE INSIDER THREAT deals with a very real and current threat and the treatment of the issues is done in a way that is both believable and informative. The characters are well developed and the author mixes in some relationship issues with Logan and the only female member of the Taskforce. Additionally, the interaction among the American and Israeli team members reveals the human side of some of the characters. I suspect the Israeli team could be part of future Pike Logan novels. The tactics and methods used by the Jihadists also adds an element of reality to the storyline. The author does a good job of providing hints along the way but doesn’t reveal the ISIS target until the very end. My criticisms of the book are few and very minor. Early in the book, I found it difficult to figure out who was who because of the number of characters and the Arabic names. I also found that on occasion the author provided so much technical information that the reader can get lost in the detail. 

THE INSIDER THREAT mixes terrorism, surveillance, and military-like actions into a very good, fast-paced suspense thriller that I recommend to those who enjoy the thriller genre. Although THE INSIDER THREAT stands on its own, it may be of interest to read some of the other seven books in the Pike Logan series.

Thank to the publisher for providing a review copy of this novel and to Booking Pap Pap for his review.