"A smile is the light in your window that tells...there is a caring...person inside." Denis Waitley

After a fatal bar fight, Ben Traven is in a jail in the Philippines when his boss, Scott Horton, manages his release. Horton needs Traven to perform a vital mission.

Rogue agent, Daniel Larison feels betrayed by the government and has stolen ninety-two torture tapes. He is blackmailing the government and will release the tapes to the news media unless he gets his payoff.

The CIA, FBI and other government agencies are after Larison and Horton wants Ben to locate him.

Ben gets a lead from Larison's former wife, Marcy, that Larison might be in Costa Rica. The FBI follow him to Marcy's home. Two FBI agents attempt to force Ben to accompany them and both wind up in the hospital, but a petite young black FBI agent, Paula Lanier, gets the drop on Ben and convinces him that they should work together.

Like many thriller novels today, there is competition between government agencies and when independent contractors are brought in, to apprehend Larison, they seemed to have no intelligence for field work. Larison is able to spot them, overcome a tranquilizing dart and eliminate twelve men without much effort. This disregard for life and unemotional approach to killing fellow Americans left me cold. The fact that Treven was ordered to observe this action and did little to prevent it also seemed inconsistent to what an honorable agent would do.

The story also had its mandatory romance scene. The rough sex action added nothing to the plot and was unnecessary.

I found that the characters were stereotypical, from the agency leaders to the men on the field. The story also meandered and didn't hold my attention as well as it should have. Finally, the conclusion was unsatisfactory. I could see that there was a good deal of research about these tapes but after reading the author's excellent John Rain series of novels, this novel disappointed.

Note: I did think that it was fun that Treven's superior is named Scott Horton and that Scott Horton, contributing editor of "Harper's" has written one of the blurbs on the back cover.

Please see my amazon review and if you agree, please state that the review was helpful.
http://www.amazon.com/review/R3L8NQKFZCO283/ref=cm_cr_pr_perm?ie=UTF8&ASIN=0345505107&nodeID=&tag=&linkCode=