Dark Winter

August 20, 2018
In Tata’s rousing fifth Jake Mahegan novel (after 2017’s Direct Fire), Ian Gorham, the genius founder of Manaslu, Inc., which dominates the “social media, retail distribution, and advertising marketplace,” plans to take over the world by starting WWIII and nuking the U.S. into oblivion. Gorham, aided by sidekick/bodyguard Dax Stasovich and brilliant code-writer hacker Shayne, kicks off the war by killing North Korea’s leader, goading the U.S. Army into an artillery battle with the Russians in Europe, and lobbing a nuke into downtown Tokyo. Meanwhile, Jake is spending quality time on a North Carolina island with girlfriend Army Ranger Cassie Bagwell when they’re called back to duty to try and make sense of the mayhem that’s erupting around the world. Tata excels at jet-fueled action and scenes in which the principals discuss fascinating global war strategy, but many military thriller fans will wish that he devoted less space to Jake’s romance with Cassie and more to what Jake does best: figuring out how to kill bad guys. Agent: Scott Miller, Trident Media Group.

September 1, 2018
Responding to a U.S. military computer-system failure, an elite group of American operatives must prevent pending nuclear strikes.Retired U.S. Army Brig. Gen. Tata (Direct Fire, 2017, etc.) brings back Jake Mahegan for another realistic, high-stakes military adventure. As Jake is embracing a growing romantic connection with his love interest and fellow highly skilled operator, Cassie, a new threat emerges on the horizon. This threat comes in the form of Ian Gorham, president and CEO of Manaslu, a cutting-edge company named after "the treacherous Nepalese summit that few dared to climb"; Manaslu's "search engine was faster than Google, the social media connections had surpassed Facebook, and the retail endeavor had rapidly overtaken Amazon." Now that he's beaten all the other tech companies, Gorham has turned his attention to a bigger project: remaking the world into a "global...unified" society. But first, he'll have to "burn the world to the ground, so that he could rebuild it." Using financing and resources from his company, Gorham has created an advanced defense laboratory and a private security force. With this infrastructure in place, he initiates the finely tuned ComWar, or Computer Optimized Warfare, by hacking into the central control systems of Russia, Iran, and North Korea. ComWar starts by shutting down power grids and closing Wi-Fi hot spots and leads to artillery strikes and artificial intelligence attacks, among other atrocities. While some of the details of this plot are a little vague, the general direction of the narrative is believable, and the main characters, while lacking development, get into copious amounts of action.A very readable and contemporary military action story.

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Starred review from September 15, 2018
Power and wealth could destroy the world in Tata's latest thriller. Jake Mahegan and his team of operatives are the best of the best, but how do you battle an opponent with money, connections, and a team of professional hackers? With access to nuclear weapons and key people in various world governments, ComWar (Computer Optimized Warfare) is ready to launch nuclear missiles at Japan; then Russia will invade Europe, and the Middle East will explode in the aftermath. Mahegan must battle an enemy who seems to know his every move, and, worse, his plans are muddled by personal considerations: Will his heart get in the way of the mission? Tata has taken elements of the world's political stage and mixed them brilliantly with a virtual treatise on cybersecurity. Throw in a charismatic villain steering the game, and you have all the elements in place for a classic, high-adventure technothriller. The open-ended conclusion will leave readers hanging, but that will only make them wish that Tata could please write faster. This is the best thriller yet by the former brigadier general.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)