Provocation — Lee Martin

Department of State Counter-terrorist operative Bruce McGowan returns in this sequel to COL Lee Martin's acclaimed fourth novel, Wolf Laurel. It is the Christmas season following the 9-11 terrorist attack and McGowan's newly-appointed FBI Special Agent daughter, Caroline, assigned to the Denver office, is missing. As she is an avid lover of the outdoors, is she merely out of call range on a hiking venture in the Rockies or has she in fact been kidnapped? From out of McGowan's past resurfaces a sixties domestic terrorist, Jonas Karn, who McGowan rather ruthlessly took down years before when he himself was an FBI agent. And to McGowan's horror, Karn, obviously out for revenge, says he has taken Caroline. As McGowan's search for his daughter begins, he simultaneously uncovers a plot by Karn and his new order of the Weatherman Underground against the American government to set off explosive devices in several U.S. cities. Angry, yet fearful for Caroline's life, the unrelenting McGowan temporarily breaks from CTT to hunt down Karn, stop the mad man's plot, and get Caroline back safely. But as Karn taunts and provokes McGowan, keeping him in the dark as to Caroline's whereabouts, McGowan goes off on his own tangent, ignoring FBI orders to stay out of the investigation, and obstructing justice in the process. As usual, McGowan will dish out his own brand of justice. A word to the wise...never, ever provoke and piss off Bruce McGowan by taking something precious of his.