The Fallen by Mark Terry, a Mysterious Review.

Review: Homeland Security troubleshooter Derek Stillwater faces one of his most daunting tasks yet — securing the release of twenty of the world's leaders — in The Fallen, the third mystery in this series by Mark Terry.

An international economic summit is taking place at the picturesque Cheyenne Hills Resort in Colorado Springs. Twenty of the world's leaders have gathered and security is tight. But not tight enough. A terrorist group known as "The Fallen Angels", led by Richard Coffee, has quietly infiltrated the site and brazenly takes the twenty hostage. Derek Stillwater, who had been posing as a maintenance man at the resort as part of the pre-summit security planning, is furious. He knows Coffee from their service days together and knows what he's capable of. There had to have been inside help, but as an insider himself — both officially and unofficially — who can he trust?

Coffee's demand is simple. Release twenty prisoners from Guantanamo Bay immediately. For each hour that passes without his demand being met, one leader will be killed. But Stillwater has his own counter-agenda. Intimately familiar with the resort layout, he plans on taking advantage of this knowledge by neutralizing the threat one man at a time — until there is only one left to face: Coffee himself.

The action in The Fallen starts almost immediately with little letup through to the final pages. Short chapters, relentless pacing, a cat-and-mouse strategy on the part of both Stillwater and Coffee, and a ticking clock keep the suspense level high. Stillwater is an exciting character to follow, methodical and inventive, yet daring and courageous — but his nemesis is as well. They're a good match. And the situation at the summit, unthinkable years ago, seems far too real of a possibility today.

The Fallen is a dramatic, well-structured thriller that will keep readers enthralled.

Special thanks to guest reviewer Betty of The Betz Review for contributing her review of The Fallen.

Acknowledgment: Oceanview Publishing provided a copy of The Fallen for this review.

The Valley of Shadows
Oceanview Publishing (Hardcover), June 2011
ISBN-13: 9781933515946; ISBN-10: 1933515945

The Fallen

A Derek Stillwater Mystery by Mark Terry