Mortal Shield
Full of authentic detail about protective operations, Taylor's debut gets off to a good start, but a one-dimensional and unsympathetic central character is likely to put off some thriller fans. When Missouri governor William Stovall is hit in the face by a pie just after taking office, he replaces his long-time head of security with the relatively inexperienced Sgt. David Armstrong. This transition comes at a perilous time for Stovall, a former prosecutor pushing for stronger anti-terror legislation, who's become a target of domestic terrorists known as the Phineas Priests. These sophisticated radicals plan to infiltrate a major anti-terror summit, where the undermanned security team must battle Stovall, who's portrayed as an unmitigated jerk, to put the necessary safeguards in place. Taylor, a security professional who has helped protect every U.S. president since Gerald Ford, casts the people in this vital business as heroes, but this admirable impulse leads to some stilted dialogue. At the climax, for example, Armstrong delivers a patriotic speech that even the character himself admits may sound "hokey."Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.--This text refers to theHardcoveredition.