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The news media does not report "news." It reports the bizarre, the unusual, the unlikely. But it does not report what is happening. You will never see a headline that reads, "Three Million Auto Trips Completed Thursday Without Mishap" or "No Fights at Wal-Mart Today." Let there be one plane crash or the equivalent of a locker room towel-snap hazing in an Iraqi prison camp on the U.S. watch, and the suits are all over it. An al-Qaeda beheading? They do it all the time. So that, by the modern definition, is not news. News, in fact, is what you don't hear about. And there is a lot of interesting news in BLACK.
BLACK is Christopher Whitcomb's first novel. He has a previous book, COLD ZERO, a nonfiction work about his fifteen years with the FBI. While BLACK is ostensibly a work of fiction, it has such a ring of truth to it that it is difficult to escape the feeling that Whitcomb is writing a memoir rather than a fictional thriller. In either event, BLACK is a winner.
Jeremy Waller is the primary focus of BLACK. The story picks up with him completing his training for a place on the FBI's elite Hostage Rescue Team. Waller attracts the notice of his instructors almost from Day One due to his almost uncanny ability to think outside the box when confronted with a problem. After demonstrating this trait on numerous occasions during training, Waller shows during a hostage extrication mission in Puerto Rico that he is capable of performing in the field and under fire as well. However, when Waller is tapped by his supervisor to perform a secret, clandestine mission overseas --- a mission of which his own agency does not even seem to be aware --- Waller's career and personal life begin to unravel for reasons he does not understand.
Meanwhile, Elizabeth Beechum, a United States Senator who appears to be on the fast track for a presidential nomination, is suddenly attacked in her home. Following the attack, she finds that her nomination and Senatorial career are inexplicably in jeopardy.
The source of Beechum's and Waller's problems emanates from Jordan Mitchell, a driven, focused business tycoon whose company is on the verge of rolling out a cellular phone that will revolutionize communications and that will also render conversational eavesdropping impossible. Mitchell's intent to roll out the telephones in the Mideast has resulted in his becoming the most hated man in America, as these cellular phones, in the hands of terrorists, will significantly compromise the ability of the United States to gather intelligence. al-Qaeda operatives, meanwhile, are on the verge of carrying out a terrorist act that will bring the United States down and affect an unsuspecting world --- all within the space of a few seconds. Waller finds himself in a race against time to stop the terrorists, and Mitchell. Not even Waller, however, can ascertain Mitchell's true agenda until the very end of the story, when all is revealed.
BLACK is quite a romp from its beginning to its very end. I thought I had it all figured out about halfway through and, appropriately enough, I was only half right. As I neared the end of BLACK, I wondered how Whitcomb was going to wrap things up in the few remaining pages. The answer to that question was, and is, very nicely, thank you. Whitcomb's pacing and plotting is the equal of a seasoned craftsman, as opposed to someone diving into the waters of a first novel. Hopefully, there will be many, many more.
--- Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub
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