Stuart Woods Iron Orchid

Iron Orchid

Stuart Woods

Putnam, Oct. 2005, $25.95, 304 pp.

ISBN 039915325X

Teddy Fay Worked for the CIA for forty years, eventually becoming a Tech Services coordinator and when he retired, he erased all his files in the Agency's computers. They have no pictures or fingerprints of the man who disappeared with astonishing ease. He started killing Right Wing politicians including the Speaker of the House and when he was close to being caught, he blew up the plane he was flying and jumped out into the ocean.

While the FBI and CIA think he is dead, Teddy relocates to New York when he starts killing terrorists, the enemies of America as he calls them. A joint FBI-CIA task force is formed and one of the CIA members is Holly Barker, the former Chief of Police in Orchid Beach, Florida. They recruited her and she eagerly grabbed the chance to become an operative. She is the only agent to see Holly and she is in the forefront of the investigation as Teddy tries to avoid the agents while continuing on his mission.

The antagonist is the focus and the star of IRON ORCHID as he calmly hacks into CIA and FBI computers with the help of an inside source. Readers will be simultaneously drawn to and repelled by this character who marches to his own drummer. The protagonist takes to her CIA training like a duck to water and is able to carry her share of the work load on her uses first case as an agent. Stuart Woods has written a compelling and entertaining cat and mouse caper.

Harriet Klausner