Doug Hewitt Spear

Spear

Doug Hewitt

Sands, 2002, $15.99, 253 pp.

ISBN: 1590250133

Popular writer Sarah Love accompanied by her beloved father, an Alzheimer's victim, relocates from Wisconsin to Brighton, Virginia. At the store near her new home, Sarah runs into control freak CIA Agent Warren Capshaw, whom she met twelve years ago. They dated for a month and somehow they became engaged, but she broke it off. She flees the store as Warren informs her that she is "until death do us part". Later Sarah meets with GAO employee Derek Morton, a long time friend whom she secretly loves, to learn more about what his agency does for a novel she is writing.

After leaving Derek, who had another appointment, a dying man falls at her side. Soon she receives official visits accusing her of espionage and finds her goldfish dead pinned to a wall. The CIA threatens her as the dead man apparently was selling secrets to the Asians. Turning to Derek for safety, they flee to his father's cabin as individuals claiming national security come looking to silence her; Warren seeks to claim her as a crushed tomato; and Project Spear commences to cover questionable agency activities.

SPEAR is an exhilarating action-packed espionage thriller that carries a message with its punch that government agencies will use anything including 9/11 to cover excesses, human rights violations, and burn the Bill of Rights if that is inconvenient. The cast is a powerful group except Warren who is so loony he distracts from the prime theme. The plot might seem stretched except the president did declare an American citizen on our soil as an enemy combatant without legal recourse which supports Doug Hewitt's strong cautionary tale in a one sitting exciting read.

Harriet Klausner