Echo Five

by: David Chacko

Published by: Foremost Press

Reviewed by Michele E. Davis

In the midst of the writers’ strike, what the Screenwriter’s Guild needed was a great writer such as Chacko in their back pocket. While self-published, this book is a testament to a prolific writer that keeps you glued to your seat with his non-stop action and excellent storytelling ability. While this is the third in Chacko’s series revolving around interrogator (also called “echos”) Jason Ender, there isn’t much back history repeated like you’d read in a Harry Potter novel.

Ender is sent to, what bin Laden called, The Third Front, also known as the Horn of Africa, to work with Echo Five, an Arabic translator, in order to question prisoner 91. Lt. Hours before Ender de-planes, Carolyn Fordyce kills herself at the self-sufficient cell community of government employees and civilians that are working for the same cause in the heat of sun, and surrounded by terrorism and subversive plots thicker than a police officers donut-filled stomach.

Fordyce’s suicide (a.k.a. Echo Five), turns Enders normally curious brain on fire with a burning passion to discover the truth about what happened to her “behind the wire.” What he discovers is a conspiracy that involves government contractors who work for The Donner Part; a sexual situation involving a Somalian woman who was a local translator for any echo on staff that might need her; and fraudulent activity that goes all the way up the chain of command. Chacko is a tour de force writer in a world filled with constant conflict, war, genocide and jihad.

Armchair Interviews says: Engaging, interesting, this espionage thriller is a book you can’t put down. Would make an excellent movie.

Author’s Web site: http://www.DavidChacko.com