THE 9TH MAN

5 stars out of 5

As a fan of co-author Steve Berry's Cotton Malone series, I was delighted to see Malone's protoge Luke Daniels, a U.S. Department of Justice Magellan Billet agent, get a book all his own. Joining forces with co-author Grant Blackwood, Berry says in the Acknowledgements, meant he'd have the time he needs to get 'er done and still work on the Malone books. Count me as one who's delighted (and for the record, looking forward to the next books in both series).

If action is your "thing," you won't go wrong with this one. It kicks in from the beginning - when old friend Jillian Stein calls to say she's in serious trouble - and he zips to Belgium to see how he can help. There, he finds a death which, apparently, isn't sufficient for a few determined killers - apparently, he and Jillian are next up. Keeping his assistance off the company books, Luke sets out with Jillian to find what her elderly grandfather and a couple of his friends were secretly working on for many years. That, in turn,  leads him to nonegenarian and Washington, D.C., "fixer" Thomas Rowland, who continues to wield power (but definitely not in a good way). That, in turn, puts the hunt - by now a collision course between Luke and Thomas, a former CIA agent - back on the official Magellan Billet books and takes him and Jillian back in time to the day President John F. Kennedy was assassinated.

It's a battle of not only of wits, but firepower; Thomas's is virtually unlimited; but once Luke's boss, Stephanie Nelle, gets involved, the playing field levels off a bit. Still, how many battles can Luke win when he's outnumbered at every turn? Can he get to the truth - and then to Thomas - before Thomas and his for-hire goons get to him? Of course, I won't spill the beans; suffice it to say I had trouble putting the book down until I knew the outcome (which, BTW, includes a rather big, and unwelcome, surprise). Terrific book, for which I thank the publisher, via NetGalley, for a pre-release copy to read and review.

The 9th Man by Steve Berry and Grant Blackwood (Grand Central Publishing, June 2023); 367 pp.