Forsyth invented it: the political thriller with whiplash-inducing change of locales, plot twists, and new villains, all set to the metronome of an impending assassination, or bomb, or terrorist threat, ticking down to zero hour. Since The Day of the Jackal in 1971, Forsyth has written 15 thrillers and spawned countless imitators. But he still has the surest hand when it comes to tripwire plotting. A real, nonrhetorical war on drugs has its start in a kitchen pantry in the White House (Forsyth doesn't say it directly, but readers will know this is the Obama White House) when an elderly waitress suddenly leaves her post, sobbing, and is followed out by the First Lady. The waitress' grandson has died from a cocaine overdose; the First Lady tells the president, and we're off to the races. The president orders the director of the DEA to produce a document on cocaine (a handy plot device that gives Forsyth a chance to explain how cocaine is processed and distributed). The president then decides that the only way to deal with this drug is to give extraordinary powers to one man to do whatever is necessary to stop the evil. Enter former CIA agent Paul Devereaux ( The Cobra ), last seen in The Afghan (2006). Matters get a little comic bookish at this point, with one man fighting evil (with the help of a shadow agency), but the tightly wrapped story keeps us going. Forsyth's canny depiction of the cocaine industry's workings is alone worth the ride.--Fletcher, Connie Copyright 2010 Booklist

Veteran Forsyth (The Day of the Jackal) shows once again he's a master of the political thriller by taking a simple but completely original idea and turning it into a compelling story. The unnamed Obama-like U.S. president, disgusted by the horrors wrought by illegal drug trafficking, decides to bring the entire weight and resources of the federal government against the international cocaine trade. He first declares drug traders and their cartels to be terrorists, subjecting them to new and extensive legal procedures, then he brings in ex-CIA director Paul Devereaux to head the team that will implement the effort. Devereaux, known as the Cobra from his operations days, is old school-smart, ruthless, unrelenting, and bestowed by the president with free rein to call in any arm of the government. Forsyth lays out how it would all work, and readers will follow eagerly along, always thinking, yes, why don't they do this in real life? The answer to that question lies at the heart of this forceful, suspenseful, intelligent novel. (Aug.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

After the almost symbolic death of a black youth from a drug overdose, an American President who is clearly Barack Obama decides to wage war on the Colombian drug cartels. Retired senior CIA operative Paul Devereaux (code named Cobra because he strikes ruthlessly) and former army operative Cal Dexter (The Afghan) are brought back to lead the effort. Given carte blanche to destroy the drug industry, Cobra builds up an elite strike force and, augmented by superb intelligence and technology, launches devastating attacks. The equally ruthless drug lords strike back violently. As the bodies and betrayals pile up, the President has second thoughts about the firestorm he's unleashed. Verdict Like almost all Forsyth's novels, beginning with The Day of the Jackal, his latest is a tightly written book that is half thriller and half procedural. With numerous intriguing twists, turns, and betrayals, it is only slightly marred by an improbable ending. Still, highly recommended for Forsyth and thriller fans.-Robert Conroy, Warren, MI (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

The master of the political thriller strikes again.Strike is a good operative word for the cops and crooks who populate the pages of Forsyth's latest (The Afghan, 2006, etc.), none of whom is afraid to unleash the dogs of war and hurt a lot of people in the bargain. This time the setting is South America, where an impatient U.S. president has decided to heat things up after it becomes ever clearer that the war on drugs isn't going so well for his team. Who's he gonna call? The Cobra, naturally, a spook bad enough to put the fear into anyone who hears the sobriquet. Said Cobra, aka Paul Deveraux, is a tough dude, to be sure, so tough that, says one of the president's aides, he was fired for being "too ruthless"against the bad guys that is. Devereaux books on down to Colombia, where he's got to go up against the baddest guy of all"educated, courteous, mannerly, drawn from pure Spanish stock, scion of a long line of hidalgos" Don Diego Esteban. In between Cobra and Don stands a small army of lesser players, from a right-hand man who's thorough but never timid to a Brazilian pilot bent on a kamikaze mission to miscellaneous cannon fodder on five continents. Forsyth's tale drags a little, particularly compared to his first and as yet unbested masterpiece, The Day of the Jackal(1971),at least in part because he takes time out to explain, at some length, the economics and chemistry (horse tranquilizer, anyone?) of the cocaine trade. All those minor players have to have something to do. Yet in the end this is a battle between titans, and it's fought to a bloody end amid heaps of bodies and at least a few unanticipated casualties, as far as the reader is concerned.Forsyth still knows how to spring a surprise. Not his best work, but a taut, readable and swiftly moving tale well suited to the beach and airplane.]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.