The Devil's Halo [Paperback]

The Devil's Halo is an incredible, addictive thriller that will have you racing through its pages - especially if you're an American. The whole plot revolves around an act of sabotage and ultimate betrayal by those claiming to be America's friends. France and Russia join forces in an attempt to cripple the American defense system in one overpowering, electronic blow by taking out the GPS network of the United States (and thereby the greater part of America's capability to defend itself militarily). In this plausible future setting, NATO has crumbled as the Greater European Union has grown strong, with France and Russia pulling all its strings. Having consolidated their power over Europe, the new partners take steps to remove the only nation capable of holding them in check - with a brilliantly devious plan that the Americans will never see coming.

America's only hope lies in an American economic spy and his wife, a brilliant scientist from the Pentagon's Advanced Research Projects Agency. Terry Weston went to Moscow to reclaim a stolen movie disk, having no clue that he would soon become the sole line of defense against what would soon become known as E-Day. The stolen movie's importance lay in its encryption, which was based on the Pentagon's own stalwart encryption. Someone had decrypted it, and the CIA needed to know who, how, and why. Economic spies normally don't see a whole lot of James Bond-type action, but Weston, with his wife and little girl in imminent danger themselves, is compelled to go above and beyond the call of duty in service to his country.

The Westons have some remarkable high-tech gadgetry at their disposal that provides them with intelligence they could never have gotten the old-fashioned way. They can only stay a step ahead of the enemy for so long, however, and that is when things get really tricky. Weston finds himself cutting deals with bad guys even as he questions whom he can really trust among the good guys - there's a mole somewhere close, personally connected with his wife's military-industrial father. To make matters worse, the powers that be back home aren't inclined to listen to his dire warnings of an imminent national defense disaster. The story doesn't end with the arrival of E-Day, either; in fact, that's when things really get interesting.

The Devil's Halo is a meticulously crafted thriller that covers a lot of ground (with activity taking place across three continents as well as outer space). I can only hope the high-tech espionage and technological intrigues of the book aren't as plausible as Fox makes them sound - this book is quite realistic enough to be a little bit scary. Many pundits (and non-pundits like myself) believe a showdown of one sort or another between America and Europe is inevitable. Russia is an ally in name only, France - well, don't even get me started on France, and the issue of planetary defense has already played a major role in modern history. The specter of SDI got Gorbachev to the bargaining table with Reagan, so it's certainly conceivable that the establishment of a Space Shield by the Americans would compel the Russians and French to take drastic steps to avoid a repeat of such ignominy.

The bottom line is that The Devil's Halo isn't your run-of-the-mill spy thriller. It's more immediate, more realistic, more sophisticated, and more compelling than most other novels of its kind. It has everything I was looking for in a spy thriller for the twenty-first century.

Terry Weston is an agent of the CIA Café or Contract Agents for Economics. He is a spy in a game where there aren't a lot of guns, death or people getting badly hurt. His wife, Maria, works as a consultant to DAPRA, the Pentagon's Advanced Research Projects Agency. They have a six-year-old daughter named Ariana.

The whole terrible tragedy starts with a movie master copy being stolen. The catch - it has military-level encryption. Terry is asked to help. That is no problem. What happens after that is something that I hope only happens in this book. But with the happenings of 9/11, I can believe anything is possible. Once Terry has made the movie useless to the people who stole it, it only gets worse. Now the American government wants Terry and Maria to help them and use their daughter as leverage. The new European group, no more United Nations, wants to make sure that America doesn't control space. By doing so, our GPS systems are targeted and in making the final effort, they create a trapped-radiation event that causes an aurora called "The Devil's Halo". Why is this significant? If I told you, it would spoil the book.

I am not up on military strategy but I was able to follow "who did what to whom" and "who's on first" in Mr. Fox's book. You need to pay attention to the characters and make sure you know which side they play on. Also Mr. Fox writes with the ability to put in unexpected twists and turns making this book hard to put down. The very last twist is one I never saw coming.

The bottom line -- grab a copy and get reading to find out just how good this book is. I would especially recommend it to anyone who loves military strategy but even if that is not your genre, it is still a book that will hold your interest to the very end.

Just a glance at the news headlines today leads to all kinds of intriguing "what if" scenarios, and Chris Fox, author of "LUCI in the Sky" presents readers with a chilling "what if" in his latest suspense novel, "The Devil's Halo." Imagine if a powerful reformed European Union, newly aligned with Russia, decided to take on America's military and technological might? And imagine that this global world war were to occur in the final frontier...space.

That's the premise behind this page-turner of a thriller, where CIA contract agent Terry Weston and his equally espionnage savvy wife Mari, a PhD and consultant to the Pentagon, become involved in a battle between a newly defined Europe and the superpower USA. As the Pentagon plans to deploy a space shield and all but take control of outer space, the EU and its ruthless allies design a master plan to cripple the American military, economy and communications, and it's up to Terry and Maria to find out who is behind it, and how to stop what would become known as "E-Day," a day of worldwide infamy that made 9/11 look like a practice run.

Meanwhile, they must protect their beloved daughter, travel the world getting in and out of dangerous situations, and look with new scrutiny at friends, confidantes and loved ones they thought they could trust, because in their world, no one is who they say they are, and everyone has a secret agenda.

As Terry and Maria find themselves deeper in danger, their lives are threatened and they must save themselves before they can stop a mysterious computer virus that threatens to destroy America's entire GPS space satellite system, creating unbelievable havoc as a result. As the situation spirals out of control, Terry learns that enemies can become allies, and allies enemies, and even those closest to you can turn out to be against you.

Filled with intricate detail that proves Fox knows his subject matter well, "The Devil's Halo" reads like it was written by a superspy with inside info into the world of military technology and cutting edge communications. The dialog is right on the money, and the action never stops in this mile-a-second rollercoaster ride. Though the book's length may seem daunting at first, coming in at well over 400 pages, the story never bogs down and the pacing slows only enough to let you catch your breath before Fox gives you another round of thrills and suspense.

Terry and Maria are an exciting and sympathetic couple, and the enemies they face are believable, mainly the French and Russian government leaders determined to take down America. Yet the author does balance the story with plenty of food for thought about why America just might deserve the world's hatred, and the result is a story that is, while utterly suspenseful, totally credible.

"The Devil's Halo" kept me up all night, wanting to know what would happen next. And once I finished reading it, I wondered just how long it would be before this work of fiction would be mirrored in the news headlines. Now that's scary.

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