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Takedown

Trash fiction par excellence, but just a little too far right of the Plausibility Continuum. Surely you realize that I usually don’t have a problem with this because the Lee Child books I read are certainly implausible. The difference is that I’m somewhat committed to Lee Child and his fictional hero Jack Reacher. I started reading Child from book one, but I crashed into the middle of this Brad Thor franchise and it just didn’t work for me.

So al-Qaeda descends on NYC some unspecified number of years after 9/11 and destroys all bridges and tunnels in and out of Manhattan at the start of a beautiful 4th of July weekend. They do so because two of their own are being held captive at some unspecified location in Manhattan and they figure shutting off all manners of ingress or egress will give them ample time to find them.

In this case al-Qaeda has a lot of classified intelligence, but they certainly can’t plan for everything. What they didn’t bank on was special ops guy Scott Harvath (and Department of Homeland Security employee) being in town for some rest and relaxation. Nor did they expect him to be visiting an old special ops buddy of his – who just so happens to be in a psych ward with three other special ops superstars. Oh yeah, one more thing, one of the special ops guys from the psych ward has an arsenal of assault weapons hidden behind the drywall in his apartment, along with plenty of ammo in his freezer. Who woulda’ thunk it?

In yet another wrinkle, the President’s daughter also happens to be in Manhattan for the weekend. Which prompts the President to go on a rant against radical Islamic fundamentalism on national TV.

Fun at times, but manipulative.