Public Enemy

by: Will Staeger

Published by: Harper

Reviewed by Bob Pike CSP, CPAE-Speakers Hall of Fame

Staeger has created a plot and characters with more twists than a corkscrew. It will keep the reader turning each page, never putting the book down, until the last page is turned.

Benny Achar is a devoted family man who sends his family ahead on vacation. He then loads his SUV with fertilizer, gasoline, and a couple of other things, swallows a vile of deadly virus, and takes out two blocks surrounding his home in a massive explosion. In the next two weeks, over 100 innocent people die.

Julie Laramie is loaned by the FBI to the former head of the CIA, Lou Ebbers. She’s placed in charge of a Counter Terror cell and charged with finding out who Achar really is—and what else might be going down. She has a blank check to solve the puzzle—but isn’t told all the facts. What she does find, though, is that there may be an army of sleepers out there across America, waiting for the signal to blow themselves up, spreading the virus with a Central American origin to millions of innocents.

W. Cooper is a semi-retired CIA operative who lives in Tortola, British Virgin Islands (BVI). Cap’n Roy Gillespie, Chief Minister of the Islands and former Chief of Police summons “de spy of da island” and asks for his help. The U.S. Coast Guard chased a 150-foot yacht suspected of carrying drugs bound for the US into BVI territory. A gun battle ensued, two of three people on board were killed, and while no drugs were found, $80 million in gold artifacts from Central America were. Cap’n Roy wants Cooper’s help in suitably “disposing” of the artifacts for the good of the island treasury. Within three days five people involved with the artifacts are dead, including Cap’n Roy and the skipper of the yacht. And Cooper has no idea why or who is behind it.

Laramie calls on Cooper to use his skills to find the source of the virus. It turns out that the virus and the artifacts are connected—and together they cause Cooper to relive a nightmare of torture and near death that he experienced in the Central American jungle twenty years earlier.

Only solving both mysteries and eliminating the people that created both will keep Cooper and Laramie alive.

Armchair Interviews says: A 5-star suspense with a great plot and great characters. Staeger also wrote, Painkiller, another suspense novel.

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