Perhaps a bit far-fetched in some people's minds, but the premise of the book really appealed to me. It's a great premise – a biological weapon that once threatened the Roman Empire is back with the potential to wipe out huge parts of the world. No matter how much I think about BLOWBACK I simply can't decide which category it was aiming for. If you get lucky occasionally some of these books can switch between the two categories seamlessly without affecting your overall enjoyment of any of the book. Then there are the psychological, the creepy, the leave the lights on, fasten your seatbelts, things could get hairy here types – in this category Tom Clancy, Len Deighton, John LeCarre, Robert Ludlum, Scott Turow and Frederick Forsyth and many many others.

The totally over the top, almost cartoon like, take your disbelief and hang it in the wardrobe, wild ride type – along the lines of Austin Powers, Colin Forbes', even James Bond to a certain degree. There are two broad classifications into which thrillers that I read seem to fit. Alomari is killing Muslim scientists who may have unlocked the key to a devastating super weapon. He must also stop his arch enemy Khalid Sheik Alomari, a high-ranking al-Qaeda operative and ruthless assassin. Harvath must go out alone and try to stop a deadly biological weapon from being distributed in America.

Harvath, and through him The President of the US, have other problems as well as Democrat Senator Helen Cunningham is on the trail of both of them, trying to prove that there is something else going on with covert operations. Scott Harvath is a Navy SEAL turned covert counter-terrorism agent who authorities turn to when the connections between these events start to become clear.

They are checking up on some Christian missionaries who haven't been heard of but are startled to find half the village dead from a horrible, flu like disease with some very nasty symptoms. And then a US army unit moves into the peaceful, multi-religion village of Asalaam near Mosul in Iraq. A year later, Islamic scientists begin dying in seeming accidents or outright assassinations and kidnappings all around the world. Archaeologists make a stunning discovery in a pass high in the French – Italian Alps, but do not live to tell the tale.

Blowback by Brad Thor