Ford, Jack: The Osiris Alliance

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Adam Stark, a one-time army ranger turned federal prosecutor, is assigned to lead an investigation into shadowy reports of nuclear material being shipped from the United States to the Eastern Bloc. He winds up teaming with television journalist Megan Delaney, who's caught a whiff of the rumors herself. They uncover leads, but at every turn their progress seems to be thwarted by the bad guys, which quickly leads them to suspect that someone in the small cadre of people in the know is leaking information. The principal bad guy is a wizened old man who isn't identified until very late in the story. A spill-all journal, never meant to be made public, is stolen from his home at the beginning of the book, and he'll go to any lengths to get it back. But Adam and Megan would like to get their hands on the journal as well, since it reportedly holds the answers to a number of questions, including who's behind the nuclear shipments and who really orchestrated the Lindbergh kidnapping back in 1936.

The Osiris Alliance is the first novel by Jack Ford, whom readers may be familiar with from his work as a correspondent on ABC News, 20/20, and other news programs. It's a very competent debut. The plot held my interest, the writing flows well, and Adam and Megan are a likable pair of protagonists--even if Adam clenches his jaw a few too many times by way of showing emotion. Ford does a good job of blurring moral lines in the book, which makes for an interesting denouement. I don't know whether this is intended to be the first in a series of Adam Stark thrillers, but I'd be happy to read a sequel. (It can't be held against the author, but there are a couple of egregious typos in the book--see pages 11 and 45--where whole chunks of text have been omitted. The publisher should see to getting these corrected in future printings.)