The world has just gone through a near-extinction event caused by African hemorrhagic fever. Scot Harvath was on the case, though, and society and humanity are intact. In Foreign Agent it appears that ISIS was not deterred by any near holocaust of humanity. They are at it again and making their presence known. When the U.S. Secretary of State is blown up in Europe, ISIS releases a slick video claiming their involvement.
Little does the world know that while ISIS is staging these attacks, including a suicide bombing at the White House, they are but puppets being controlled by Russian strings. If Russia can provoke the U.S. into destroying ISIS, it will leave a power vacuum in the Middle East and Russia can step in and assert control of Syria. It's strategic and wily, but they did not take into account the intervention of Scot Harvath.
As Harvath globe trots, putting the pieces of the puzzling plot together, a spy is at work deep inside the U.S. government, aiding the Russians. Foreign Agent has all the unbelievable elements that Thor's readers have come to love and expect in a Harvath novel. Harvath is on top of his game, but is having second thoughts about whether to settle down in Boston, where his girlfriend Lara is a cop. Before he decides about that, he has a job to do, and the body counts rise (all bad guys, of course).
As over-the-top as Thor's writing sometimes is, this book got me to sit back and think a bit about diplomacy, deception, and statecraft, more so than most of his books. What Thor proposes--one state supporting another state or a seemingly unrelated terror group to wreak havoc--is not inconceivable. He used a similar set-up in Act of War, where some rogue Chinese used Muslims to make it appear that Muslims were behind an attack. I wonder how much of this goes on in the real world.
Foreign Agent is classic Harvath, a fast read with lots of action and an interesting, it-could-happen-tomorrow plot.
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