Black
Christopher Whitcomb
(Reviewer - Narayan Radhakrishnan)
2004 Little, Brown & Co.
ISBN: 0316601012

An FBI special agent is sent into an off-the-books anti-terrorist mission with no backup.

This thriller couldn't be more topical: fighting terrorism at its source. Special FBI Agent Waller, just selected for the Hostage Rescue Team, must give up a life he thought he understood, to dive headlong into a violent world of trapdoor truths & shifting alliances where the greatest threat may be his own sense of right & wrong.

Black races around the globe: FBI secret training rooms, Arabian deserts, Congress & Wall Street. Along the way, it lifts the curtain on secret operations, corporate manipulation & classified technology. Everything we think we know about justice comes to an end in this murky world. We are presented with hard choices, & forced to consider that sometimes the only way to get out of the darkness is to head even deeper into the shadows.

Sr. Associate Reviewer Narayan Radhakrishnan writes:

Black caught my attention at the outset. With glowing tributes (in the blurb) by suspense masters Frederick Forsyth & David Baldacci, I thought there might be something special about the novel. I was wrong. What Black offered is something more special than special, something spectacular & fascinating -- all rooted in reality.

Christopher Whitcomb is a former sniper of the FBI Hostage Rescue Team, & his expertise & experience is well revealed. The setting, narrative & theme are so real & down to earth, that I was left wondering whether the book is a fictional recreatopm of something that truly happened.

Though the central plot is one we have seen & read in many a suspense thriller of the style of John Le Carre (Tinker, Tailor, Soldier Spy & The Honorable Schoolboy) or Frederick Forsyth's (The Fourth Protocol & the more recent Avenger) -- of a rookie young FBI agent fighting dangerous terrorists -- it's the way Christopher Whitcomb presents his story that's spellbinding. Black is a chilling novel of the fight against world terror & corporate manipulations.

For 15 years Christopher Whitcomb worked for the FBI, including becoming a member of the elite Hostage Rescue Team. A lot happened that he couldn't even tell his wife, although he shared as much as he could in Cold Zero., his memoir, which I am off to read.

Black is stunning! Absolutely stunning.
(08/01/04)

Narayan
2004©Narayan Radhakrishnan
A RebeccasReads.Com Sr. Associate Reviewer

Reviewer's Bio:
I am a 26 years old lawyer practicing in Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, India. Along with my legal practice, I have finished post-graduate studies for both Business Law & Human Rights. I am a self proclaimed numero-uno legal thriller lover & am the proud owner of all of Grisham's & Turow's novels. I enjoy John Mortimer's Rumpole & relish an occasional Martini & a rare Scot(ch)t-oline with a Patterson on the side.

My work A FICTION OF LAW is now about 500 pages in length & features 500 lawyer authors & 2000 legal thrillers covering a 300 year period - inclusive of entries from the USA, UK, Asia, Europe, China, Middle East etc. Still in search of a publisher.
www.keralatourism.org