The Enemy Within

This is a well-written and very enjoyable intelligence thriller. The basic story, that the president's life is threatened and the killer must be stopped before time runs out, is maybe nothing too original. But the mechanics of the whole situation are fascinating: the personal and professional circumstances of the agent put in charge of the investigation, a developing international crisis, the details of how the investigation is carried out. That the protagonists are so carefully drawn is part of what pulls you in; you know so much about their backgrounds that you need to know what is going to happen to them. Interestingly, the president is not a very sympathetic character or circumspect leader and the reader may wonder if the world would be better off if the assassin succeeds.

I have read a lot of books like this one while traveling and almost always I am pissed off when I finish. Dumb. badly written. Cliche filled. Boring. Not this time. Noel Hynd has written a well-researched thriller (don't let his research turn you off - he integrates it seamlessly) that rocks down to the finish line. Nicely subversive but never preachy, it manages to have both a point of view and intelligence while staying true to the conventions of thrillers. I would reccommend this book over just about any current best seller of its kind. Certainly it is light years ahead of every book I picked up in various airports on several recent trips to Oklahoma. (Well I did see Richard Morgan's "Altered Carbon" on one rack - buy that one as well even though it is SF). You cannot go wrong with "The Enemy Within."

This was a very well-written book and very enjoyable. This particular genre can degenerate into sordidness but not this book. It had grit that wasn't gratuitous and great character development. Let's have more Laura Chapman - soon!

An excellent hard-hitting thriller! I had previously read Ghosts by the same author, which was great, but I actually prefer this genre. I loved the new heroine, Laura, who's a US Secret Service agent. Great story, great action scenes, terrific characters, intelligent writing. I read the whole thing in one weekend. This is how spy thrillers SHOULD be. I was sorry when it ended.

In 2009, because she is a female Presidential Protection Detail Secret Service Agent Laura Chapman is tasked to stop a paid assassin from killing the President. Little is known about the assailant except that he is male and a secret service agent. Thirty something Laura begins her investigation by tracking down the source of the tip, a peson who used the name "Charley Boy". Laura learns that Charley Boy is actually hooker Anna Muang, who overheard a client explaining the hit on POTUS. As Laura continues to dig for the blond evil, she finds herself racing against time and not getting any closer. Who amongst her peers has the audacity to accept $10 million from an enemy foreign government to kill the president of the United States? THE ENEMY WITHIN is an exhilarating thriller that never slows down from the moment that Laurua learns her gender gives her the assignment until the final showdown inside the White House. Though the action-packed story line contains too many sidebars that enable the audience to also better understand the motives of the heroine, the countdown threat to the assassination keeps the audience enthralled as increasingly it looks like the rogue agent will succeed. Noel Hynd provides an edge of the seat thriller to his many fans. Harriet Klausner