From Publishers Weekly
After five nonfiction outings (including the best-selling Mindhunter), Douglas and Olshaker jump into the deep end of the thriller pool with a creditable series opener that establishes the swift-response flying squad of agents that former FBI agent Douglas never got a chance to implement in real life. The team is led by fictional ex-FBI profiler Jake Donovan, who not only shares the initials of one of his creators but his nickname as well (he's called "the Mindhunter"). After getting himself fired for insubordination, Donovan is called back to investigate the apparent suicide of FBI director Thomas Jefferson Boyd, who's found dead in his San Francisco home along with a compromising picture that suggests he was being blackmailed. Donovan, who had earlier refused a blank-check offer from wealthy widow Millicent De Vries to create his flying squad, reconsiders and gathers a crack team of experts to assist him in his investigations. The team's adversary is a criminal mastermind who will undoubtedly be showing up in future episodes of the series, and Donovan is provided with a worthy love interest, fellow agent Kathleen McManus, herself suspended for posing for a pantyhose catalogue. As the team crisscrosses the country in its private plane, enough red herrings are introduced to keep the plot lively. Though the novel is not as assured as Douglas and Olshaker's authoritative nonfiction, and Jake Donovan tends to read as a watered-down version of Douglas, this is, overall, a solid, promising debut. Still, fans of the clinically detailed Mindhunter and Journey into Darkness may well be disappointed when they discover that in this case fiction is not as gripping as fact. Agent, Jay Acton. 7-city author tour.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Kirkus Reviews
Douglas, the FBI's famous Mindhunter of Thomas Harris's novels, has collaborated with Olshaker on four previous nonfiction books about profiling serial killers and other baddies (The Anatomy of a Motive: The FBI's Legendary Mindhunter Explores the Key to Understanding and Catching Violent Criminals, p. 770, etc.). But the competition they offer isnt quite serious enough to make Harris fear that one of his characters has returned to a previous life, split into co-authors, and now written his, or their, first Mindhunter novel. Here, Douglas morphs into Jake Donovan, an FBI profiler who is on hand for an Agency attack on right-wingers besieged in a country shack in Wyoming. As with Waco and Ruby Ridge, things go horribly wrong, and Jake is retired from active service by FBI Director Thomas Jefferson Boyd, supposedly for having undermined the organization with an earlier memo he wrote showing how the tragedy could be avoided. It's clear Jake was right, but he's sent off to Quantico to teach. Jake's big dream is to have a specially equipped plane and fly-in team of Mindhunters to track murderers and others when they first strike. But his idea has always been quashed. When Director Boyd is found a suicide, service pistol in hand, Jake's team goes into action. Harris would never write such dusty stuff as ``he always prided himself on his survival skills'' or ``he . . . removed the business end of the gun from my face.'' Even so, Douglas and Olshaker keep the pages burning. (Author tour) --
Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
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