Extreme Denial

From Publishers Weekly Morrell no longer writes lean and mean like he did when he created Rambo (in First Blood, 1972), but he can still spin a tale of conspiracy that leaves others' in the dust. In Rome, an undercover operation by Brian McKittrick, the spoiled-rotten screw-up son of a CIA legend, ends in a disaster that's officially blamed on the interference of veteran agent Steve Decker. An angry Decker resigns from the Company; 13 months later, he is happily working as a real estate agent in Santa Fe and falling in love with his beautiful new neighbor, Beth Dwyer. That is, until the night a team of hired killers breaks into his house, wounding Beth and nearly killing him. From this point, the action is nonstop. When Beth disappears, Decker discovers, to his shock, that the killers were after not him but her?with the explanation going back to that disaster in Rome. The experienced Morrell reader will figure out the first of the author's surprises long before Decker does, but by keeping the pacing fast and the action furious, Morrell ensures that no reader is going to hold a grudge for long. Questions and loose ends abound but this powerhouse thriller achieves a runaway victory on the basis of sheer storytelling excitement. Film rights sold to Michael Douglas and Paramount Pictures; translation rights sold to 20 countries; author tour. Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. From Library Journal Rambo creator Morrell (First Blood, 1972) deserves high marks in the espionage genre. In his newest work, American operative Steve Decker is on assignment in Rome when an unstable young colleague, Jason McKittrick, botches the mission, and dozens of casualties result. The implicated Decker resigns, to the consternation of his superiors. Unmoored in Manhattan, he sets out to acquire an adobe house in Santa Fe after viewing a television show about New Mexico in his hotel room. Reborn there as a prosperous real estate agent, Decker falls in love with gorgeous and well-heeled neighbor Beth Dwyer. But when Beth's home is bombed inexplicably and she is seen fleeing with a man fitting McKittrick's description, Steve is hurt and confused. Determined to find Beth, he undertakes a mission of his own, relentlessly pursued by mobsters and terrorists. Fans of Le Carre's pretzel plots will enjoy this spirited thriller. Recommended for public libraries.?Susan A. Zappia, Maricopa Cty. Lib. Dist., PhoenixCopyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. From Booklist It's a long way from operating undercover as a CIA agent to selling real estate in Santa Fe, but Steve Decker seems to have made the leap. A lifetime of solitude is forgotten when Beth Dwyer enters Decker's life. She is a widow from New York who thinks Sante Fe will be the perfect location to pursue her well-established art career. Life seems fine until four armed assassins invade Decker's home. He thwarts them--permanently--but later Beth's house is bombed, and she's killed. Decker is devastated until a thorough Sante Fe cop named Esperanza interviews a witness who says she saw a woman fitting Beth's description run from the house before the explosion. Decker is an emotional wreck; he's elated Beth may be alive but heartbroken to think she may have set him up for the kill. But why was her home destroyed? Decker has to know the answers and enlists the aid of Detective Esperanza on a chase that takes them through the Southwest to New York and back again. Morrell is the extremely popular author of numerous best-sellers, including First Blood (1990), which introduced Rambo to the world. His formula often consists of a lone wolf looking for peace but forced back into action against seemingly insurmountable odds. It's what readers have come to expect, it's what Morrell delivers, and he does it very, very well. Expect heavy publicity and heavy demand. Wes Lukowsky From Kirkus Reviews Pow! A counterterrorist's pipe dream of the good life after he's left the CIA erupts in an explosive, cartoonish vendetta in this cotton-candy thriller from Morrell (Desperate Measures, 1994, etc.). Steve Decker left the Agency after an anti-terrorist operation in Rome went disastrously awry, killing 23 innocents and leaving Decker to take the fall for Brian McKittrick, the colleague whose incompetence actually caused the carnage. Now, re-creating himself as a Santa Fe realtor, Decker dreams of a Hallmark rebirth in the Land of Enchantment, that magical landscape of subtly shifting light, great restaurants, and soft- focus coitus courtesy of lovely widowed painter Beth Dwyer. Decker really loves Beth, and tells her so, even though he's always had a problem expressing his emotions. As if in retribution, professional killers break into his house as Beth lies asleep in his arms. Decker swiftly dispatches all four of them, of course, but when an explosion rocks the house he's just sold Beth next door, he's got to face the shocking news that the killers aren't CIA types after him; they're out to get Beth, whose past turns out to be even more checkered than his. And Brian McKittrick, who's still convinced that Decker sabotaged him in Rome, turns out to be just as active in this round of intrigue--but, unfortunately, no longer just as incompetent. Decker and his old adversary hunker in for a bloody battle of wits, purchasing shotgun shells and homing devices by the gross, but the threatened casualties won't bother you, because no whiff of reality ever troubles Morrell's ballet of thrust and counterthrust or makes you worry a bit about his steadfast tin soldier. Remember all those short stories that were supposed to pack as much plot and feeling as a full-scale novel? Well, here's the novel. (Film rights to Paramount; author tour) -- Copyright ©1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. At forty, Steve Decker is one of America's most accomplished anti-terrorist operatives. Then a bungled covert operation kills twenty-three people in Rome and leaves Decker shouldering the blame. Embittered by the fiasco, he retires to the mountains of New Mexico and there meets an extraordinary woman named Beth Dwyer. She changes his life. Suddenly Decker has the very things he had lived so long without: a beautiful, brilliant woman he longs to marry and a future that could include children. But when a terrifying assault rips his world apart, Beth disappears - leaving an agonizing mystery in her wake. Who is this woman he loved so completely, almost to the point of obsession? Is she still alive? Was she captured by Decker's enemies or her own? Did she love him or use him - possibly as bait in some sinister plan? Reaching back into his shadowy past, Decker discovers that two malicious - and diametrically opposed - forces have been stalking him. To stay alive, Decker must use all his carefully honed skills, stay one step ahead of his murderous enemies, and pray that luck is on his side as he moves from hunter to hunted, from the deserts of Santa Fe to the streets of New York City. For Decker the stakes couldn't be higher: Beth's life, Beth's love, and, most of all, the truth. David Morrell is a former professor of American literature at the University of Iowa. Read more