By Dawn's Early Light

Thrillers don't get much more intense than this one. Sloane Ryder is a New York financial analyst. She stumbles across dirty financial dealing in a major corporation and is fired and blacklisted for reporting it to the SEC. She despairs of finding a job, but is noticed and hired by a secret division of the General Accounting Office. It has detected some disturbing happenings involving the Chinese and high officials in the US government. Soon, with the help of Secret Servicewomen, Holland Tylo and Hollis Fremont, whom Shelby readers will recognize from previous books, an incredible plot emerges. The Chinese government intends to kill the American president and use the confusion as cover to conquer Taiwan. But as Sloane's unit closes in on the American traitors, the Handyman, a professional assassin hired by the Chinese, murders them. The action moves ever-faster to a breathtaking climax. This is a genuine thriller. I usually can put any book aside, no matter how thrilling, until I have time to read again, but I couldn't stop reading this one. Shelby has given us a first-rate story.

Philip Sheby delivers once again and this may be his best yet! It is simply a page turning read with well drawn characters, a fascinating story and enough twists and turns to keep one's interest up until the last page. Don't let this one stay on the shelf!

The Handyman crosses borders and oceans with little difficulty and seldom, if ever, leaves behind any witnesses. He has been hired to facilitate a plan to assassinate the first female president of the United States. The story opens with his trip to an orphanage in North Korea to select a child to be used as a human bomb. It moves to New York to Sloan Ryder, a super smart trader who discovers an insider-trading scheme. When she blows the whistle on her boss, she sets in motion a sequence of events that eventually uncover the plot to kill the president and lead her to the attention of the Handyman. The suspense is exciting, and the books moves through a series of unexpected plots. ...AND the coverup that takes place could just as well be a new job for some actual character in Washington today. It's a great read...a hard one to put down until the end which makes way for the next book. Hope it comes along soon.

The Handyman is one of the top four assassins in the world. He recently was hired to kill the first female President of the United States, who insists that the world recognize Taiwan's sovereignty. The Handyman plans to use a North Korean orphan (number 1818) as the instrument of the President's destruction at a Thanksgiving party where the attendees include one hundred and thirty children suffering from AIDS. Sloane Ryder is a fierce believer in justice as evidence by the fact that she blew the whistle on her boss whom performed insider-trading fraud with a choice firm on the mainland. She is recruited to work in M6-11 a covert group within the General Accounting Office. She inadvertently finds a traitor who has ties to somebody high up in the government as well as with the Handyman. As she and others begin to investigate this seditious conspiracy, Sloane and the assassins are on a collision course with destiny. BY DAWN'S EARLY LIGHT is an exciting political thrillers with more twists, turns and hairpin S curves than the most exhilarating roller coaster. After the events of September 11, Phillip Shelby's latest potboiler seems very conceivable as the tale relies on technologies that already exist. This makes for a very plausible plot.Harriet Klausner

This was one of the better books I have read lately. In no other novel have I been so excited to find out how it all would end. The characters were intense and believeable. The setting of the book was also very interesting. Political thrillers that give an in-depth look at the workings of the highest levels of government positions are fun to read and make you want to join up! A fabulous book!