The Black List, by Brad Thor

Brad Thor opens his recent novel Black List with a rather prophetic quote from Senator Frank Church, D-Idaho, from an interview on Meet the Press in August of 1975:

[America's intelligence gathering] capability at any time could be turned around on the American people and no American would have any privacy left.  Such is the capability to monitor everything: telephone conversations, telegrams, it doesn't matter.  There would be no place to hide. 

If this government ever became a tyrant, if a dictator ever took charge of this country, the technological capacity that the intelligence community has given the government could enable it to impose total tyranny, and there would be no way to fight back. . . . I know the capacity is there to make tyranny total in America, and we must see to it that [the NSA] and all agencies that possess this technology operate with in the law and under proper supervision so that we never cross over that abyss.  That is the abyss from which there is no return."

Speaking of prophetic, not only was Church decades ahead of his time in predicting the expanse of the NSA's monitoring powers, Thor published The Black List well before the NSA worked its way into the headlines, drawing criticism for their over-zealous monitoring of American's lives.

In Black List, Thor's ex-government agent and all-around tough guy, Scot Harvath, and all of his compatriots at the Carlton group get placed on the Black List, a secret government hit list reserved for those who pose a danger to the US but who the US deals with outside the justice system.  Harvath manages to elude repeated attempts on his life, and is determined to figure out who wants to kill him and why.

As it turns out, a shadowy government contractor who handles surveillance for a wide range of government agencies is manipulating the list to their own ends.  They see the Carlton Group as the only realistic barrier to stop their onerous plans for taking over the Tri-State Area--er, I mean, the U.S.  Of course, Harvath is too sharp for even their best sharpshooters, and he and his pals quickly get to the people behind the people behind the hit teams.

Thor fans get what they love and look for in a Harvath book.  Lots of action, a driving plot, impossible odds and dead bad guys.  I've read a few other Harvath books, and Black List ranks as a good one.  But as fun as they are to read, and as much as you want to cheer for Harvath, there is a still a point at which you realize that things are maybe a little too easy for him.  But the story is so enjoyable, it's better just to shrug off the implausibility and enjoy the ride.

Thor does a nice job of presenting the dangers of the surveillance state and the consequences of its abuses.  However, I think he too easily dismisses the role of government officials versus private contractors.  He seems to put lay the abuses at the feet of private contractors gone out of control and a few bad actors in the government.  Maybe I'm too cynical, but I think the abuses we've seen revealed by Snowden show that the government itself is by its very nature a glutton for information about citizens and the power they can derive from that information.  As it becomes cheaper and cheaper to monitor and analyze every e-mail, text message, and phone call, government will continue to expand its power over our lives.  As Church warned, we may be approaching an abyss from which we cannot return.  Just try to stay off the Black List.