Guest Review: Ring of Fire

Summary: Former Delta Force officer and New York Times bestselling author Brad Taylor delivers a relentlessly fast-paced, gripping thriller featuring Taskforce operators Pike Logan and Jennifer Cahill as they come face-to-face with an insidious threat to strike terror into the heart of America.

Fifteen years ago, in order to win a contract in the Kingdom, a desperate defense contractor used a shell company to provide a bribe to a wealthy Saudi businessman. Now a powerful player in the defense industry, he panics when the Panama Papers burst onto the public scene. Providing insight into the illicit deeds of offshore financing, they could prove his undoing.

To prevent the exposure of his illegal activities, he sets in motion a plan to interdict the next leak, but he is not the only one worried about spilled secrets. The data theft has left the Taskforce potentially vulnerable, leaving a trail that could compromise the unit. Back in the good graces of the new president, Pike Logan and Jennifer Cahill are ordered to interdict the next leak as well, in order to control the damage.

Unbeknownst to either group, the Saudi has been using the shell company to fund terrorists all over the world, and he has a spectacular attack planned, coinciding with the fifteenth anniversary of 9/11. The information Pike and Jennifer uncover will put them on the trail of the imminent threat, but it’s one that they might be unable to stop.

Called Ring of Fire, it will cause unimaginable destruction across the United States, and the ensuing chaos and terror will distract the Taskforce from a truth no one sees: Ring of Fire was only the beginning, and the danger is far from over. -- Dutton

Booking Pap Pap is back with a review... and so is Brad Taylor with his latest Pike Logan novel RING OF FIRE. It's the eleventh book in this action-packed series, and I think my dad enjoyed it quite a bit. Here are his thoughts:

RING OF FIRE is Brad Taylor’s 11 novel in his Pike Logan series and the third one I have reviewed. Pike Logan is the team leader of a secret American counterterrorism unit called the Taskforce that answers only to an Oversight Council that includes the President and a group of 13 individuals from various branches of the U.S. government.

In RING OF FIRE, Pike and his team are asked to intercept the release of the Panama Papers and avoid potentially damaging information that could compromise the Taskforce. The Taskforce is unaware of the efforts of a powerful defense contractor who is also working to stop the leak of the Panama Papers because of information about illegal offshore accounts that could prove harmful to his company.

Pike’s team discovers these offshore accounts and follows the trail that leads to a wealthy Saudi businessman who is planning attacks on U.S. shipping that would coincide with the fifteenth anniversary of 9/11. Pike must unravel this mystery in time to avert the planned attacks.

As with his other books in the Pike Logan series, the author deals with real world issues in a believable and informative way. His ability to cleverly blend fact and fiction gives RING OF FIRE a credible story line. Taylor’s Delta Force experience and his thorough research is apparent as he informs the reader with his detailed knowledge of terrorists and their methods.

Taylor’s characters are well developed. The Taskforce team is now quite familiar to anyone who has read several of the books in the series. However, a new reader might have a difficult time understanding the team’s relationships since Taylor has done very little in this novel to explain any of the background of the team members. I also found Pike operating closer to the edge of the rules governing the task force than in past novels that I have read. As long as he is successful, all seems to be forgiven. The secondary characters in the novel are very interesting. For example, there is a Somali-American member of a sleeper cell who is a drone expert; a South African mercenary who follows similar leads as the Taskforce and runs into Pike’s team; a potential new member to the Taskforce is put into action and the Moroccan brothers who work in a filthy leather cleaning operation and desire to be Jihadists. 

The RING OF FIRE is a good mixture of terrorism, technology and military-type action that is blended nicely in a fast-paced suspense thriller.

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