Flight of the Pawnee

How do you find your way back from a war without an end? How can a slowly crumbling and divided America successfully defeat a faceless foe? The short answer is that you look towards those that are struggling to come to terms with their past to defend you and give their lives a purpose. Flight of the Pawnee is the first of a proposed four-book novel series based on a new character named Derek Almer.

In the book terrorist group, Al Qaeda has grown frustrated at the west’s ability to kill off their leadership structure and the continued conflicts in the region. They ambitiously form a new goal – to kill three times as many Americans in one attack as died on 9/11. The main villain in the story devises a plan to kill upwards of 20,000 people. With or without the help of the CIA and the FBI, Almer undertakes to investigate the group’s actions and it quickly leads them along with our protagonists Almer and his partner former cop Jack Bertram down a harrowing path across two continents. Society in the book is slowly being overrun with darkness and a single solitary man and a “Pawnee”. This is the consuming chess match of our times and he finds himself at the forefront of the book’s events. His attempts at uncovering the truth, force his own government to view him as a threat, and they seek to silence him.

The main characters of the book are indeed figures of heroic gallantry and complex natures. But they are largely people caught up in the affairs of their betters. The game of cat and mouse between the cultural impulses of the times and the terrorists are the 21st-century equivalence of the sport of kings. The kind of mind games that important figures play on one another that carries low risk and high reward. However, for people like Almer, their tasks are a matter of life and death. It is effortless for the reader to be transported in this richly created literary world. We can see as the curtain slowly falls even more and spins a complex web of secrets and revelations that keep the audience engaged throughout. The book has some of the most creative and fully flushed out characters in modern fiction. The book’s narrative is both nuanced and breezy. The book’s visuals are compelling and revealing. The defining conflict is presented with haunting clarity.

Author Marc Liebman, himself a veteran, is commanding with his writing, and this book will continue to prove engrossing and enchanting for years to come. This is a great triumphant book! A spectacular literary experience and a refreshing, suspenseful thriller.