Hunt the Jackal

March 24, 2014
At the start of Mann and Pezzullo’s exciting fourth SEAL Team Six thriller (after 2013’s Hunt the Falcon), thugs working for cartel boss Ivan Jouma (aka the Jackal) kidnap Lisa Clark, the wife of Jesse Abrams Clark, “the senior Republican senator from Virginia,” from a resort in Sedona, Ariz., along with her 17-year-old daughter, Olivia. When Warrant Officer Tom Crocker and the remnants of his team return from a botched mission to destroy a downed Predator drone in northwest Syria, they learn that their next job is to slip over the border into Mexico and rescue Lisa and Olivia. Ivan, who suffers from terminal hepatitis C, intends to appropriate Lisa’s liver to extend his life. The authors wisely keep backstory and personal problems to a minimum as Crocker and his men go about their dangerous business, which involves a boatload of Special Forces military action. Agent: Heather Mitchell, Gelfman Schneider Literary.

May 1, 2014
The fourth novel to feature SEAL Thomas Crocker on a hunt concerns the drug war in Mexico. With a failed mission in which several men were lost still haunting him, Crocker moves on to a new case: a senator's wife and daughter have been abducted in Mexico, and it appears that, even if the ransom is paid, the captives are unlikely to be released unharmed. The pace is relentless, and the inside knowledge of how the SEALs operate again gives this series its appeal. The ending feels way too rushed, but that's only a minor criticism. For action fans, Crocker continues to deliver.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)