Triple Booked

Retired Special Forces Lt. Colonel Brad Taylor can make certain that much of the technology, terminology, tactics and action of his Pike Logan "Taskforce" thrillers is correct, having trained in the field for most of his career. In 2011's One Rough Man, Logan debuts as the leader of one of the Taskforce teams -- groups that operate mostly outside of established legal guidelines to fight terror threats on U.S. soil and abroad. They're kept in check by a system of advisory review and the high character of the men chosen to serve on the teams, but when a tragedy changes Logan's life forever, he eventually leaves the Taskforce to enlist in the Drowning Your Sorrows brigade.

A chance encounter puts him back into the game, trying to help an innocent woman stay alive and uncovering a terrifying plot against the U.S. But Logan hasn't played in some time, and time plus the bottle have made him rusty -- maybe too rusty to survive.

Taylor's first novel runs smoother than many do, and his grasp of realistic covert operations and activities helps keep One Rough Man more grounded than some similar works. He writes in the first person and gives Logan a kind of chatty, snarky gumshoe patter that seems at odds with the seriousness of Logan's work, the violence of the missions and the deep depression he has when he returns to the narrative. But he makes Logan's story more compelling than a lot of his thriller colleagues do, adding touches about what's going on inside our hero that strengthen the story but don't get in the way of the good old-fashioned beatin-on-the-bad-guys mayhem going on outside of him. It's probably worth at least one more novel to see if Taylor can keep that up.

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The "Camel Club" is a group of loosely associated folks in Washington, D.C. who have a variety of covert and overt operative experience, falling equally along both sides of the law. Its leader, a former CIA assassin, has taken the name Oliver Stone and has guided the Club through the thwarting of several shadowy conspiracies aimed at destabilizing the United States or other nefarious undertakings.

In 2010's Hell's Corner, the fifth Camel Club novel, Stone has been called back into government service to help track down a Russian mafia connection with narcotics trafficking. But before he can begin, a bomb explodes more or less in front of him at Lafayette Park near the White House. With the British prime minister the suspected target, Stone is given a new job: Solve the bombing and stop whoever was behind it before they try again.

Baldacci is a serviceable writer and moves his scenes along nicely. The characters are mostly a bundle of surface traits and are like journeymen actors who show up, hit their marks, read their lines and leave, which actually serves him best because he really doesn't have the wherewithal to give them more depth. The plot has a number of confusing twists -- and not the good kind -- that make it tough a couple of times to figure out what's supposed to be going on. The lead baddie's plan makes some sense, yet includes portions that are just operationally silly. Baldacci continues to progress as an author but could still use a lot more polishing.

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Back in 2010, wandering adventurer Jack Reacher spent some time on the phone with U.S. Army investigator Major Susan Turner, who commands his old outfit, in Lee Child's 61 Hours. Intrigued by her voice, Reacher resolved to wander back to his old base to meet her, and in the new Never Go Back he finally does. But Major Turner is not the CO in his old office, and Reacher learns he's the target of two separate charges against him that bring parts of his past to the surface -- and threaten to make him a part of the past. As he attempts to clear both himself and the major, Reacher will probably have to break a few rules, and maybe some heads. Fortunately he's good at both.

On the one hand, Never Go Back has the satisfaction of paying off Reacher's interest in Major Turner. She proves just as interesting, tough and resourceful as you'd hope a woman who caught Reacher's attention would be, and Child's reliably efficient and clear prose sketches her quickly and brings her into the story nicely.

On the other hand, Child seems to have brought everything to his narrative here except coherence and a clear direction. Never Go Back pads its story with at least one unnecessary encounter between Reacher and a crew of poor, benighted fools who challenge him (spoiler: Reacher wins), and Child leaves enough details fuzzy at certain points that it's difficult to see what exactly is happening. He hints at payoffs that Reacher fans know are unlikely to happen, as they would pretty much kill the series, and has gone so far with his hero's skills in a fight that the closest Reacher comes to an injury is some reddened knuckles after punching a guy.

Child has flagged before, with Bad Luck and Trouble and Nothing to Lose, and Never Go Back is still much better than either of those. But it has a hazy, loopy, unfinished feel that combines with some series elements so exaggerated as to approach self-parody to set it definitely in the half-baked category.