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When Saudi zillionaire Osama bin Laden speaks, Allen Trumble, CIA chief of station in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, listens. When bin Laden breaks the news that he's the proud owner of a Russian-made, suitcase-sized nuclear device and wonders if there might not be someone else higher up that he might speak to, the call goes out to Kirk McGarvey, deputy director of operations. A call also goes out to some very bad men who, upon the Trumble family's return to the States, slaughter the lot of them in, of all places, a Disney World parking lot.
The administration, never bin Laden boosters, thinks even less of him after the Disney World hit, but the man does have a bomb, so off McGarvey goes to Afghanistan for a face-to-face and a look-see. Once McGarvey's in situ--and after bin Laden surgically removes a homing device from his body--the president becomes convinced that McGarvey's been killed and orders a retaliatory strike. It misses bin Laden but hits and kills his beloved 19 year-old-daughter, Sarah.
This time, as they say, it's personal, and bin Laden knows just what to do with his bomb. Detonate the little bugger below the Golden Gate Bridge just as President Haynes's Down's syndrome-afflicted daughter is passing above. Tick, tick, tick, tick.
And so goes Joshua's Hammer, David Hagberg's umpteenth thriller and the eighth entry (after 1999's White House) in his popular Kirk McGarvey adventure series. The premise is less than original, but fans of Clancyesque techno-thrillers won't necessarily be disappointed. The book moves well despite Hagberg's off-the-rack prose and characterizations, and, if the reader can navigate the babble-strewn home stretch, delivers a none-too-surprising yet satisfying finish. --Michael Hudson
From Publishers Weekly
Continuing the popular thriller series featuring Kirk McGarvey, CIA deputy director of operations, Hagberg (White House) revisits the threat of international nuclear terrorism. Allen Trumble, CIA chief of station in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, has a brief, disturbing audience with the oil-rich Saudi Arabian terrorist Osama bin Laden, in which bin Laden says he has acquired a portable nuclear bomb from the Russian mafia and wants to speak to someone more important in the CIA than Trumble, if he's going to negotiate a truce. Shortly afterward, Trimble takes his wife and two teenage children back to the States for a vacation. Trimble thinks they're safe in America, but the whole family is brutally gunned down by three Arab terrorists in the parking lot of Disney World in Orlando. Then McGarvey is sent to meet with bin Laden in his stronghold in the mountains of Afghanistan. After the terrorist directs his surgeon to remove a homing microchip surgically implanted in McGarvey's side, the U.S. presidentAmistakenly thinking that McGarvey has been murderedAorders a missile strike on the hideout, killing bin Laden's 19-year-old daughter. Continuing the volley of vengeance, the terrorist has his agents ship the nuclear device (called Joshua's Hammer) to San Francisco, set to explode just as the president's daughter, afflicted with Down's syndrome, is running in the Special Olympics across the Golden Gate Bridge. He also sends an assassin to kill McGarvey's daughter, a CIA agent in the Washington area. The first three-quarters of this promising action plot moves with good pace and intensity. The denouement bogs down in exposition, technobabble and banal dialogue, however, leaving even diehard readers struggling to stay awake for what should have been a heart-stopping finale. (Sept.) Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Booklist
The award-winning Hagberg has produced 16 thrillers writing as Sean Flannery and 14 under his own name, 7 of which are Kirk McGarvey adentures. In this eighth McGarvey outing, our hero, now the CIA's Deputy Director of Operations, is up against Saudi zillionaire terrorist Osama bin Laden and his fanatic followers, eager to die on the way to paradise. To their other crimes, bin Laden and company have added the assassination of a CIA field agent and his family during a Disney World vacation. But the really bad news is that bin Laden has bought himself a one-kiloton Russian nuclear device to be detonated in the U.S. When an attack on bin Laden's headquarters results in the death of his teenage daughter, the terrorist vows to take his revenge by killing the president's daughter. For those who like high-action thrillers on a global scale, this one delivers the goods. Budd Arthur
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Review
"If you're looking for thrillers with international intrigue, Hagberg is a major find."--Dean Koontz
Review
"If you're looking for thrillers with international intrigue, Hagberg is a major find."--Dean Koontz
Book Description
When a one-kiloton Russian nuclear demolition bomb the size of a suitcase ends up in the hands of multimillionaire Osama bin Laden, the entire world sits up and takes notice. And when the United States launches an attack on the terrorist's base of operation in Afghanistan, killing his daughter, retaliation against America is inevitable.
Now, Kirk McGarvey is in for the race of his life, and a race against time. McGarvey has to find out how the bomb will get to the United States, where it will be detonated, and when this, the worst terrorist attack in U.S. history, will take place. But not only must McGarvey stop the bomb, he must protect his own daughter and the daughter of the president of the United States for a savage act of retaliation by a man gone mad.
About the Author
David Hagberg is a former Air Force cryptographer who has traveled extensively in Europe, the Arctic, and the Caribbean and has spoken at CIA functions. He has published more than twenty novels of suspense, including the bestselling High Flight, Assassin, and Joshua’s Hammer. He makes his home in Vero Beach, Florida.
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