UNDER SIEGE [Hardcover]

Unlike some of the later Jake Grafton books, Under Siege doesn't feature much in the way of high-tech weaponry. Instead, it features a large cast of characters from all walks of life and describes them in ways that make them seem real and allow us to empathize with them.

This book is a thriller, of course, and the story is certainly suspenseful and exciting. A Columbian drug lord has been extradited from Columbia to the USA and awaits trial in Washington DC. In the hopes of forcing the Americans to release him, he institutes a war of terror against Washington DC on several levels. Soon there are assassination attempts on the President and several other key government figures, innocent people are being gunned down left, right and center, bombs are exploding in public places and the city is blacked out when the electrical system is destroyed.

How will the politicians, the police, the military and the ordinary residents of Washington react to this? Stephen Coonts has his suggestions, some of which are rather surprising, and this keeps you reading as the level of terror increases and the story unfolds.

Stephen Coonts is good at describing people and their relationships. Here's a passage I found especially appealing:

"You love a woman for many reasons. A goddess she seems when you are young. But finally you see she is of common clay, the same as you, with faults and fears and vain, foolish dreams and petty vices. So you cherish her, love her even more. As she ages you cling closer and closer, holding tighter and tighter. She becomes the female half of you. The toughening of her skin, the engraved lines on her face, the thickening waistline and the sagging breasts, none of it matters a damn. You love her for what she is not as much as for what she is." (Page 87 in the paperback edition I read.)

Not what one expects in a thriller, and that makes this quote even more appealing.

I do have some criticisms though, and that's why I'm giving Under Siege four stars instead of five.

Most importantly, I dislike thrillers that create a fictitious modern history populated with real people. An assassination attempt on the President of the USA is exciting, but placing George Bush Sr. in the role of the target makes the whole thing a bit too weird.

Another problem I had with Under Siege is that the description of the mutilation and killing of a drug dealer gets quite a bit too graphic for my taste.

Finally, there's a scene where an assassin shoots a man 500 yards away, firing through a glass window right in front of his gun. This is simply not possible as far as I know because the glass window will deflect the trajectory of the bullet by a tiny amount, and after 500 yards this tiny deflection will have become a very large displacement from the desired trajectory.

Still, I did like Under Siege a lot, and I think it's a refreshing change from similar high-profile thrillers that are typically populated by cardboard clichés instead of real people.

Rennie Petersen