Robert Ludlum's (TM) The Janson Option (Janson series)
This is Ludlum’s novel only in the sense that the late best-selling author created the character in 2002’s The Janson Directive. It was Garrison who wrote the follow-up, 2012’s The Janson Command, turning the character from a one-shot to a series lead. Now, in the third Paul Janson novel, the former U.S. covert operative (he runs a private security firm now) is hired by an unlikable oil exec to rescue his young wife from Somali pirates. But Janson soon begins to suspect there’s more to the story than he’s been told. Could the oil exec know more about his wife’s kidnapping than he’s letting on? Garrison, who under his real name, Justin Scott, is coauthor (with Clive Cussler) of the splendid Isaac Bell thrillers, keeps the pace moving steadily, and Janson and his partner, Jessica Kincaid (a world-class sharpshooter), make a good team. Think of it as a streamlined, more polished version of a Robert Ludlum thriller without Ludlum’s clunky prose and expository style. --David Pitt