Former NYPD detective John Corey is back in Nelson DeMille's 14th novel, Wild Fire. If DeMille has become a bit of an alarmist, it's still worthwhile fun to follow Corey, the world's most irreverent terrorist hunter, as he runs down bad guys and dispenses definitive justice in an ambiguous world.

A member of the Federal Anti-Terrorist Task Force and a formidable thorn in the side of wrongdoers and superiors alike, Corey has been the main man in four DeMille thrillers. He has been shot at, beaten and threatened with firing more times than he can count, but he measures success only in results. He also is loyal to his friends, so when a fellow agent turns up dead on a fishy surveillance mission, Corey and his partner Kate Mayfield head to upstate New York to investigate the curiously named Custer Hill Gun Club.

Mayfield is an FBI agent who is technically Corey's boss as well as his wife—which Corey would surely flag as redundant. The two soon butt heads with Bain Madox, the ultra-rich owner and founder of the gun club. Madox is a rich Vietnam veteran who is righter than Rumsfeld. He also is either insane, brilliant or both, but that's for the individual reader to judge.

Madox's diabolic plan is worthy of a Bond villain. Luckily, Corey has no problem playing the role of 007 as he and his wife try to stay alive while thwarting Madox's not entirely unimaginable nuclear solution to the chaos in the Middle East.

Corey, first introduced in Plum Island, keeps a stiff upper lip and cracks jokes in the face of danger. He is also grandstanding, irritating, puerile and at his best just plain obnoxious. So how is he popular enough for DeMille to have brought him back for a fourth turn? Because anyone who has ever had a boss, an enemy or a wife—yes, Detective Corey, redundant again—has wanted to be Corey for at least a moment. And, oh yeah, he also gets the job done.

Ian Schwartz writes from New York City. Copyright 2006 BookPage Reviews.

This is the exciting sequel to DeMille's hugely successful Night Fall and is his fourth novel to feature the irrepressible and irreverent retired New York Police Department cop John Corey (Plum Island and The Lion's Game were the others). It's been a year since 9/11 and Corey is still searching for terrorists. The United States is contemplating invading Iraq and a right-wing fanatic wants to start a nuclear war against Islam by nuking two American cities. Very rich and very crazy former army officer Bain Madox heads an organization of high ranking government officials, and they have four suitcase nukes. Obviously, it is up to Corey and his FBI agent wife, Kate Mayfield, to stop the mayhem. "Wild Fire" is the name of a government program guaranteeing an automatic and massive nuclear response in case we are attacked by atomic weapons. This book is fast-paced and thrilling, and if the plot may seem implausible and over the top, a check of recent headlines is in order. An excellent read for a multitude of reasons. Highly recommended. [See Prepub Alert, LJ 7/06.]—Robert Conroy, Warren, MI

Set in October 2002, bestseller DeMille's can't-put-it-down fourth thriller to feature ex-NYPD detective John Corey (after 2004's Night Fall ) involves an American right-wing plot to suitcase-nuke two U.S. cities. The idea is to provoke an existing government plan called Wild Fire that automatically responds to nuclear terrorism in the homeland with a nuclear attack that will wipe out most of the Middle East. That such a plan probably exists, according to an opening author's note, heightens the tension. Corey and his FBI agent wife, Kate Mayfield, set off to find antiterrorist agent Harry Muller, who has disappeared after being assigned surveillance duties at the Custer Hill Club, a rich man's hunting lodge in upstate New York. John and Kate are a wisecracking, affectionate, deadly duo, with a new resolve born in the tragedy of the World Trade Center bombing. This tour de force of relentless narrative power neither stops nor slows for twists or turns, but charges straight ahead in the face of danger. (Nov.)