David Wolstencroft Contact Zero

Contact Zero

David Wolstencroft

Dutton, Sept 2005, $24.95

ISBN: 052594902X

In Peru, Ben Sinclair looks forward to his first posting after graduating with nine others from British espionage school. However, his assignment falls apart almost immediately when he is accused by the local police of smuggling. He escapes capture, but is stunned when his call to his handler Mum is met with zero help. The embassy reacts the same way although to both parties he insists he was framed.

Ben makes an appeal to his classmates, but only Lucy responds. She informs him that seven of them are dead murdered on the same day around the globe; only they and Nat still live. The trio tries to unite to stay alive as agents try to kill them. There only hope of survival resides in discovering and perhaps destroying their only possible haven mythological Contact Zero, but the probability of achieving this appears impossible but is even made more difficult by the threesome not trusting one another.

This action pack thriller starts with an assault in Thailand on one of the seven and never slows down until the final confrontation with zero options left for the runaways. Readers will be hooked trying to learn why seven homicides and three attempted murders occurred to the espionage school graduating class. The survival capers of the beleaguered trio take front stage in a thrill a page tale that keeps the adrenaline of readers anticipating what happens next at the pinnacle of excitement.

Harriet Klausner