Covert groups, spies on spies, countries with strange bedfellows, this first book in the Able Danger series will keep the reader country-hopping worldwide. It opens with what appears to be a nice normal American suburban household which is suddenly disrupted in a very peculiar way. The family has become an unwitting test subject.
Kensington Roth has taken a political debacle and run with it. His protagonist is a black-ops spy, Harrison Court-006. Building around actual political decisions, Roth's book is a very compelling work of fiction that ties into reality very well. The style of writing is unique and very descriptive, the reader can picture whatever Court sees and encounters. The author's sense of place and time is exquisite, the characterizations believable and consistent.
The action builds all the way through the book. Court's discovery that there is some kind of super-weapon, "Gravvox" being tested, and that one of their own, an ex-CIA agent has gone rogue, propels him with the extreme urgency of a runaway train to hunt down the ex-agent, stop him and learn the who, what, and when. A plausible scenario, with a great and terrible surprise ending. Fortunately Roth is on his toes and the next book "Danger for 2" will be out soon, because I can't wait to find out what direction the sequel will take.
4 1/2 stars
April 17, 2010: Just out, story-board type movie trailer for Able Danger on YouTube
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