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BLACK LIST
by Brad Thor
Atria, July 2012
371 pages
$27.99
ISBN: 1439192987


Buy in the UK | Buy in Canada

While author Brad Thor knows how to create a white-knuckle thriller, what remains most frightening is just how close to reality his story lies. In his latest in the series featuring counterterrorism expert (and former Navy SEAL) Scot Harvath, the hero is being targeted by his own government, without a clue as to why.

Placed on the "black list," a secret government list normally targeting terrorist agents abroad, Harvath knows that no one comes off the list until they are dead. But why is he being targeted? And by whom? These questions drive the narrative of the story.

Still, it is the degree of surveillance (heightened by Thor's storytelling) that will engender the most fear in readers. While we are all aware of Internet tracking and public surveillance by cameras on the street, this novel highlights just how insidious and potentially irreversible that trend has become in many other ways. As readers head deeper and deeper toward the book's crisis, it begins to become apparent just how all-encompassing Big Brother has become, and how much the public has been lulled into accepting post-9/11.

Although Thor cleverly opens the book with a quotation from Senator Frank Church in 1975 warning the American public of how the government (in that case, the NSA) was using surveillance tactics on the American people, Church (and Thor) warn that a line once crossed, will never be reversed. Have we crossed it? One of the most startling facts the author drops into the story is the existence of a $2 billion storage facility being built in Utah for the sole purpose of storing data on Americans for future use.

Another tool that the author uses that will keep readers up at night is the use of independent government contractors, whose rogue behavior is difficult for a sluggish, inefficient government to keep abreast of, much less control. While this provides the evil counterpart to the book's hero, it has been clear from real-world actions in Iraq and Afghanistan that this outsourcing of governmental activity to private companies can be a disaster waiting to happen.

Those who prefer to ignore all these political issues will still find an engaging, well-written action story as good as any on the market today. However, the fact that author Brad Thor serves on the Department of Homeland Security's Analytic Red Cell Program (which advises the government on potential terrorist scenarios) should not only shake readers from their complacency but make them wonder if Thor is trying to send an important alert.

§ Christine Zibas is a freelance writer and former director of publications for a Chicago nonprofit.

Reviewed by Christine Zibas, August 2012

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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)


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