{"id":11066,"date":"2024-07-22T07:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-07-22T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=11066"},"modified":"2024-07-21T11:12:33","modified_gmt":"2024-07-21T15:12:33","slug":"the-infiltrator","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=11066","title":{"rendered":"The Infiltrator"},"content":{"rendered":"
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When the tropes of crime fiction\u2014the secrets, the deceit, the evasions, the jealousies\u2014become too much, that\u2019s when a no-holds-barred thriller like TR Hendricks\u2019s new The Infiltrator can be a welcome cleanse. It\u2019s a vein-scouring adventure as you follow retired US Marine and wilderness survival expert Derek Harrington in his effort to extirpate a dangerous group of domestic terrorists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Infiltrator is the second book in a series that began in 2023 with The Instructor and can be expected to have at least one more sequel, in order to tie up loose ends. I haven\u2019t read the first book, but that was no handicap to enjoying this one. The only missing piece was why<\/em> the terrorists were doing what they were doing, but if you accept the premise that they are on some kind of wild and crazy mission, the why is pretty much irrelevant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The methods Derek uses to stay perfectly hidden in the woods while on a weeks\u2019-long surveillance assignment are quite inventive, though in the early pages, you may feel you\u2019re reading a catalog for survivalists\u2019 gear. The communications lingo will be immediately clear to readers with military experience, but, even as a civilian, I still could follow it easily.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Derek is hiding in the hills of rural West Virginia, watching members of a terrorist group called Autumn\u2019s Tithe prepare for a major attack. Although no longer in the military, he has some official standing. He\u2019s been deputized by the FBI, and can call in massive military and law enforcement resources when he needs to (OK, give the author some leeway). He experiences a conflict of conscience right up front, because the terrorists live as a large family. He sees the wives and children who may become casualtiesm, and some of those kids are his son\u2019s age.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You don\u2019t have to wait for the end of Chapter One for the terrorists to make their move. A three-vehicle convoy, including a fertilizer-bomb-laden box truck and a van of heavily armed terrorists, leaves the camp, intent on committing mass murder. Derek calls it in. A Hellfire missile operated by a soldier way across the country in Arizona destroys the convoy, followed by two attack helicopters whose weapons subdue the people left behind in the camp. Next arrive members of the FBI\u2019s Hostage Rescue Team who take prisoners.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In case this sounds like a massive exercise in commando-porn, rest assured that before long, you learn the situation has a number of nuances. Almost inevitably, they\u2019re political. Relatively modest objections to conducting such a violent attack on US citizens in their home country are raised.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Part of what this mission was intended to be\u2014a clean-up operation of Autumn Tithe remnants\u2014included capturing their leader, a former FBI agent. Her role makes this pursuit personal for Derek\u2019s colleagues. But it\u2019s also clear that somewhere in government, a mole is revealing vital information about the FBI\u2019s plans. Bureaucracy and unimaginative, by-the-book leadership rear their ugly heads too. Of course, Derek\u2019s methods don\u2019t appear in any book, so conflict between him and the top dogs is inevitable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While the ongoing adventure keeps the pages rapidly turning, author Hendricks clearly enjoyed writing the fight scenes and, at times, dragged them out past the point of plausibility. He is a former US Army captain who served as a tank platoon leader and military intelligence officer in Iraq and an advisor to the Iraqi Ministry of the Interior\u2019s intelligence arm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As we say in our house, \u201cIf this is the kind of thing you like, you\u2019ll like this one.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Order your copy here<\/a>, and Amazon will send me a micropayment!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When the tropes of crime fiction\u2014the secrets, the deceit, the evasions, the jealousies\u2014become too much, that\u2019s when a no-holds-barred thriller like TR Hendricks\u2019s new The Infiltrator can be a welcome cleanse. It\u2019s a vein-scouring adventure as you follow retired US … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"An action adventure that\u2019s a perfect vacation read. This will get you going on the laziest summer days!","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[440,193,126,32],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11066","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-adventure","category-espionage","category-reading-2","category-thriller"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2NkiT-2Su","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11066","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11066"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11066\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11068,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11066\/revisions\/11068"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11066"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11066"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11066"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}