The First Commandment by Brad Thor; 2007; Atria Books, New York, NY; 404 pages; 978-1-4165-4379-4; 3/12/09-3/13/09

Someone from Scot Harvaths’ past is targeting his friends and family, shooting his girlfriend, assaulting his mother, and many other friends.  The President has asked him to stay out of it, for reasons that he can’t reveal to Scot.  This doesn’t sit well with Scot, because it has gone beyond battles between countries someone has made it personal.  Scot enlists some old friends to help him and at one point they are all accused of treason and traitorous activities.  Scot finds himself on the wrong side of his country and is pursued by agents of the CIA who aren’t given the full story.  He finds himself partnering with the Troll, who was responsible for much of the mayhem in Takedown, it’s distasteful to Scot but again he operating on the basis of “any means necessary” to stop the bad guy.   When the bad guy is revealed at the end of the story it was a surprise but made perfect sense, and there were clues scattered about throughout the book which helped it make sense. RRRR

I am now caught on Mr. Thors’ books and am looking forward to reading the new book, Apostle, which comes out this summer.  He has joined the group of Coben, Crais, Tanenbaum, Reilly, Mills, Child, Evanovich, Emerson and a few others whose new releases are eagerly anticipated.