This nifty thriller from bestseller Coes (Bloody Sunday) introduces private operative Rod Tacoma, a former Navy SEAL and friend of the author's series hero, Dewey Andreas, who makes a cameo appearance. A faction of the Russian mob carries out two high-level assassinations--of a Republican senator and a Democratic governor, both leaders in the fight against the Russian mafia--as a warning to the U.S. government to get out of their business. The CIA forms a special kill unit to go after the Russians. After a pair of assassins kill the original team leader, Tacoma takes over the operation. The odds are stacked against him because the Russians own a traitor in the government, the senior California senator, who keeps the bad guys apprised of the operation from its very inception. In the exciting climax, Tacoma goes hand-to-hand with the Russian mob boss. Authentic tradecraft and top-notch action scenes propel the plot. Coes continues to more than hold his own in a crowded thriller field. Agent: Nicole James, Chalberg & Sussman. (July)

The opening pages of this fine spy thriller can jolt one, just for a delirious moment, into thinking that Ian Fleming is among us again. A superspy guns his Italian sports car through Washington, D.C., trading it later for a Ducati 1199 Panigale. The villain surveys his corrupt world from a sailboat ""built by McConaghy Boats out of Sydney, Australia."" The name brands give way soon to a world far meaner than James Bond's. The collapse of the Soviet Union has loosed Russian crime syndicates on the world, and early on we learn how they handle opposition: in two well-wrought scenes, popular politicians are executed in public. This calls for ex-SEAL Rob Tacoma, recruited by the CIA to kill the killers and bring down their handler. Bond's license to kill is upped here to permission to kill anyone who gets in the way. Readers should be patient with the ""head-hopping"" too many points-of-view in the beginning, and wait for the ramped-up display of Tacoma's ""raw skills as an assassin,"" which are on full display in the finale. For those who still enjoy the kind of cordite-fueled adventure in which a good guy wipes the floor of bad guys.--Don Crinklaw Copyright 2010 Booklist