DAYLIGHT

5 stars out of 5

When it comes to series characters from this author, military investigator John Puller earns top honors as far as I'm concerned - with FBI agent Atlee Pine a fairly close second. Bring them together, and, well, I'm in character heaven. Officially, this is the third in the Pine series, and she's still doing her darndest to find her twin sister, Mercy - who was kidnapped some 30 years earlier and hasn't been seen since. At the moment, Pine is taking a few days away from her remote Arizona base to follow a trail to Georgia, where she learns the name of her sister's kidnapper.

The follow-up puts Atlee and her capable assistant, Carol Blum, in Trenton, N.J.; there, she locates a relative of the kidnapper and hopes he's got some beans to spill. But in a fluke, he runs away - and Pine runs smack dab into Puller, who was there to arrest the same guy in connection with a drug ring. After she explains what she was after, she and Puller pay a visit to the runaway's father, who's in jail - only to have the interview inexplicably cut short. When other avenues of investigation - of both Pine's sister's disappearance and Puller's drug case - are slammed shut, they realize that some kind of cover-up is happening at the highest levels of government. 

Needless to say, that only makes them more determined to ferret out the truth, and Puller enlists help from his very capable Air Force brother, Robert. Only one thing is certain: the two cases share commonalities, which means Pine and Puller jointly commandeer a substantial portion of the book (Puller makes so many appearances, in fact, that it took the ending, which focuses more on Pine, to remind me whose book this really is). But that's a plus for fans of both series, who I expect will enjoy the interaction between two top-dog characters as much as I did.

Most everything gets resolved in the end, but not without plenty of action, losses of life and near misses thereof. What isn't, I presume, will become the premise of the next book - to which I am, of course, looking forward. Just as an aside, though, I will advise those who haven't read the other two Atlee Pine books to start at the beginning; I'm sure I was able to hit the ground running with this one simply because I was familiar with her story. Overall, though, I don't hesitate to call this one another winner.

Daylight by David Baldacci (Grand Central Publishing, November 2020); 416 pp.

NO MAN'S LAND

5 stars out of 5

Sometimes, I want to kick back and read a book or two just for the pure pleasure of it. Such is the case now, when the notion of cooking Thanksgiving dinner for two groups of relatives on two different days has had me stressed out for a month. So, I put my ever-growing stack of free-for-review books aside and turned to new entries by a few of my favorite authors.

And oh, what a relief it is! This is the fourth in the John Puller series, and I've been looking forward to reading it ever since I learned the release date. Now I admit it's a bit on the technologically far-fetched end of the spectrum (especially considering the backstory happened 30 years ago), but it came so close to the realm of possibility that I wasn't bothered at all. In fact, I hated to put it down, and on the day before the first of the two crowds was to arrive, I even put off making my delicious (if I do say so myself) deviled eggs for the half-hour I needed to finish it.

In the beginning, chapters flip between scenes from two story lines. In the first, a criminal named Paul Rogers is released after 10 years in jail; clearly, he's hell-bent on revenge for something that happened to him 30 years ago that turned him into nothing short of a monster. And just as clearly, he'll stop at nothing to get it. Meantime, Puller is notified that the case of his mother's disappearance back when he was 8 years old will be reopened. She was never found, and now it seems someone has accused Puller's elderly three-star-general father of murdering her. 

Puller, an Army special agent, and his brother Robert, an Air Force major, don't believe the accusations and want to learn the truth. The government, though, doesn't make it easy, putting roadblocks and cease-and-desist orders at every turn. But even though his brother's hands are tied and he's unable to follow through, John throws caution to the wind and refuses to give up (turning to his capable and attractive friend Veronica Knox for help).

As expected, the two story lines begin to converge; the Puller brothers' mother, Jackie, disappeared when the family lived at Fort Monroe, Virginia. And at that time, Rogers was at the Fort as well. The deeper Puller digs into the past, the closer it brings him to Rogers. It's a high-stakes race with an inevitable clash at the end - and the resulting fallout could be deadly. But for whom?

Honestly, I'd love to spill the beans, but I'm out of time. Gotta get that turkey in the oven stat!

No Man's Land by David Baldacci (Grand Central Publishing, November 2016); 432 pp.

THE ESCAPE

5 stars out of 5

It's impossible to describe what a treat it is to read a well-written action thriller that kept me turning pages even when I should have been doing other things and kept me wondering how it would turn out until close to the end. Of course, it shouldn't have come as a big surprise; this is the third book featuring U.S. Army Special Agent John Puller, and I gave 5 stars to Book No. 2, Zero Day, and 4 to the first, The Forgotten.

This one, though, has a major twist; Puller's intellectually gifted older brother, Robert, has been convicted or treason and has been in a high-security military prison. Then one day, he somehow escapes, leaving an unidentified dead man in his cell (who, apparently, he has murdered). Then something truly unheard of happens: John Puller is allowed to hunt down his brother and bring him in. On the surface, it doesn't feel right; just as an attorney shouldn't defend nor a surgeon operate on a close relative, under normal circumstances Puller wouldn't be allowed near the case. Some government big-wigs, though, seem to think he's the person best qualified to get the job done, and in part because he's never quite believed his brother really committed treasonous acts, Puller agrees.

Very early on, it becomes clear that some folks don't want Robert Puller brought in alive - and they may well be lurking among the very folks who gave John Puller the assignment. Also early on, the younger Puller finds himself stuck with a mostly unwanted female partner - also an agent, but not necessarily allied with the same powers-that-be as Puller. Who to trust, in fact, becomes an almost bigger issue than trying to find a runaway soldier whose skills and experience in the field may be sharper than Puller's - and he's no slouch in either department. The only thing that's crystal clear is that something big is afoot, and some very powerful people want to make sure the truth never gets out no matter what the human cost.

The Escape by David Baldacci (Grand Central Publishing, November 2014); 470 pp.